# G-20 Sherpa Sees India as a Global Hydrogen Champion

An episode of [Switched On](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469286286), 30 Aug 2023, 18 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/01a10738-3608-4dec-883c-ae3c00026b36/ab8803f0-6e17-41c0-8228-b06d008b21a5/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d114f63-833d-4b78-bbf5-ae3c00026b44

This month, BNEF’s New Delhi Summit took place alongside the B20 meetings, the official business community engagement forum for the G20. Among BNEF’s guests was Amitabh Kant, the G20 Sherpa for the Indian government, who sat down for a conversation with BNEF CEO Jon Moore on the Summit stage. Amitabh has had a long career in public service, including serving as the Secretary for India’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, the Chairman and CEO of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corporation, and the Secretary for the Indian Ministry of Tourism. He is now the CEO of the Government of India’s think tank NITI Aayog. Together, he and Jon discussed Amitabh’s vision for Indian green hydrogen production, the nation’s expanding EV sector, and how attracting private capital investment will help decarbonize India’s hard-to-abate sectors. Complimentary BNEF research on the trends driving the transition to a lower-carbon economy can be found at BNEF<GO> on the Bloomberg Terminal, on bnef.com or on the BNEF mobile app. Links to research notes from this episode: Information on upcoming BNEF summits - https://about.bnef.com/summit/ Videos of interview and talks from previous BNEF summits - https://www.bnef.com/videos?video-type=summit See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This is Dana Perkins and you're listening to Switched on
[0:02] Speaker 1: the BNAF podcast. So last week BNF held its annual
[0:06] Speaker 1: summit in New Delhi, but this year was different because
[0:09] Speaker 1: it took place alongside the B twenty or Business twenty meetings.
[0:14] Speaker 1: These are the official business community Engagement forum for the
[0:17] Speaker 1: G twenty meetings. Among the attendees was Amaitab Khant, the
[0:20] Speaker 1: SHEHRPA of this year's G twenty summit in New Delhi.
[0:23] Speaker 1: Amatab has had a long career in Indian public service,
[0:26] Speaker 1: with many roles focused on promoting business interests in the country.
[0:30] Speaker 1: He formerly served as the Secretary for the Department of
[0:33] Speaker 1: Industrial Policy and Promotion, the Chairman and CEO of the
[0:37] Speaker 1: Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corporation, the Secretary for the Indian Ministry
[0:41] Speaker 1: of Tourism, the Managing Director of the Kerala State Industrial
[0:45] Speaker 1: Development Corporation, and most recently the current CEO of the
[0:49] Speaker 1: Government of India's think tank n t Ayak. At the summit,
[0:52] Speaker 1: BNAF CEO John Moore sat down with Amatab on stage
[0:55] Speaker 1: for an interview. Together, they discussed his vision for India
[0:59] Speaker 1: as a large scale green hydrogen producing nation. India's expanding
[1:03] Speaker 1: electric vehicle sector and how a well designed circular economy
[1:06] Speaker 1: might feed into it, and how attracting private capital investment
[1:10] Speaker 1: will help to decarbonize India's hard to abate sectors. As always,
[1:14] Speaker 1: if you like this podcast, make sure to subscribe to
[1:16] Speaker 1: receive updates on future episodes and give us a review
[1:19] Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to make us more discoverable
[1:22] Speaker 1: by others. And now let's listen to John's conversation with
[1:25] Speaker 1: A G twenty shirpup Am tab Kant.
[1:41] Speaker 2: And now it is my great pleasure to ask to
[1:45] Speaker 2: come on the stage, Ami tab Can mister Ami tab
[1:48] Speaker 2: Kent G twenty Scherpa, former CEO of Nitti Ayog, So
[1:54] Speaker 2: please come and join me. You joined us for our
[2:03] Speaker 2: first event here twenty seventy, so thank you very much
[2:06] Speaker 2: for sticking with us. It's been an interesting last few years,
[2:10] Speaker 2: not least for COVID. So we had some virtual events.
[2:15] Speaker 2: And actually you just put out a book and this
[2:19] Speaker 2: is the book. When I knew about it, Amazon delivered
[2:22] Speaker 2: in a day or two and it's a fascinating book.
[2:26] Speaker 2: And I suppose question one is why did you write
[2:29] Speaker 2: a book? Why did you think a book was required.
[2:32] Speaker 3: So the book is about you know, it's on seventy
[2:36] Speaker 3: five years of business and enterprise in India. And I've
[2:40] Speaker 3: been a great believer that if India has to grow
[2:43] Speaker 3: at high rates of eight to nine percent per annum
[2:47] Speaker 3: for the next three decades and lift a vast segment
[2:50] Speaker 3: of our population above the poverty line, is the private
[2:54] Speaker 3: sector which has to be the key driver of growth,
[2:56] Speaker 3: and the government must retreat in a range of areas.
[3:00] Speaker 3: And you know, on the eve of our colonization, actually
[3:04] Speaker 3: we had twenty four percent of the global GDP. By
[3:07] Speaker 3: the time we became independent, it had come down to
[3:09] Speaker 3: just five percent in nineteen forty seven, and then you know,
[3:14] Speaker 3: the British Raj was replaced by a lot of license raj.
[3:17] Speaker 3: So I really believe that now we are the fifth
[3:21] Speaker 3: largest economy in the world. We are accelerating the pace
[3:24] Speaker 3: of growth in the by twenty twenty seven will be
[3:27] Speaker 3: the third largest economy in the world. But the important
[3:30] Speaker 3: thing is to raise per capita incomes in a very
[3:33] Speaker 3: big way, and that would require India to have three
[3:37] Speaker 3: decades of high growth rate. We've grown at high rates
[3:41] Speaker 3: but for limited period of five to six years. So
[3:43] Speaker 3: we need to grow at eight percent plus for three
[3:46] Speaker 3: decades and that's critical to be a way developed and
[3:50] Speaker 3: an advanced economy. And they're the role of private sector
[3:53] Speaker 3: in energy transition, in sunrise areas of growth, a vast
[3:58] Speaker 3: range of areas. The disruption has to come in from
[4:00] Speaker 3: the private sector.
[4:02] Speaker 2: And how do you you mentioned private sectors being an
[4:04] Speaker 2: engine for that growth. How do you think the private
[4:07] Speaker 2: sector and government can best work together because it needs
[4:09] Speaker 2: to be a partnership. How do you think about that?
[4:12] Speaker 3: So if you look at recent times, the government has
[4:16] Speaker 3: actually acted as a facilitator and a catalyst, and it's
[4:20] Speaker 3: done a lot of job in the central government, a
[4:23] Speaker 3: lot of job of cleaning up rules, regulation procedures. Acts
[4:29] Speaker 3: is scrapped, fifteen hundred laws. It's done a huge amount
[4:32] Speaker 3: of work on ease of doing business. It's brought in
[4:35] Speaker 3: the Goods and Services Tax, which replaces about twenty eight
[4:39] Speaker 3: different taxes and cesses, broad in the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code,
[4:43] Speaker 3: the Real Estate Regulation Act. It brought down corporate taxes
[4:47] Speaker 3: to global benchmarks.
[4:49] Speaker 4: It's done a lot.
[4:51] Speaker 3: It's done a lot now it gave away a lot
[4:54] Speaker 3: in terms of resources, so that corporate balance sheets could
[4:58] Speaker 3: improve when it reduced corporate taxes. It's now important that
[5:03] Speaker 3: the private sector really in the post COVID era, puts
[5:06] Speaker 3: in resources for investments and drives further growth.
[5:10] Speaker 4: This is critical.
[5:11] Speaker 3: The second key thing is I think what the central
[5:13] Speaker 3: government has done, the same thing has to be done
[5:17] Speaker 3: by a number of state governments. Because India's very large countries.
[5:22] Speaker 3: It's bigger than twenty five countries of Europe. So you
[5:24] Speaker 3: need states to become the key driver of bringing in
[5:28] Speaker 3: ease of doing business and driving those states. Urbanization will
[5:33] Speaker 3: be a very key driver of growth in the coming years.
[5:35] Speaker 3: And my belief is that India needs to fire on
[5:39] Speaker 3: all cylinders.
[5:40] Speaker 4: It can be just services.
[5:41] Speaker 3: You need to grow on manufacturing, you need to raise
[5:44] Speaker 3: your agriculture productivity, and you need to do sustained sustainable urbanization.
[5:50] Speaker 2: For a long time, any thoughts on government companies, government
[5:54] Speaker 2: owned state owned enterprises.
[5:56] Speaker 3: So I've been you know, several state companies have done
[5:59] Speaker 3: very well. But I've been a long term believer and
[6:01] Speaker 3: that's the government philosophy that government should remain in.
[6:05] Speaker 4: Just four key sectors.
[6:07] Speaker 3: Other sectors government should actually get out and government should
[6:11] Speaker 3: ensure that the private sector steps in in many of these.
[6:14] Speaker 4: Key areas of growth.
[6:15] Speaker 3: So a few sectors where it's critical government should remain.
[6:18] Speaker 3: Otherwise it should be there should be private sector play
[6:22] Speaker 3: in India.
[6:23] Speaker 2: Okay, and let's talk a little bit about innovation, because
[6:26] Speaker 2: you talk a lot about innovation and you've personally been
[6:28] Speaker 2: involved in a lot of legislation for innovation over the years.
[6:34] Speaker 2: What do you think of the real strengths India has
[6:37] Speaker 2: in innovation space.
[6:38] Speaker 3: Let's say, so, I think you know one of the
[6:42] Speaker 3: biggest innovations India has done. If you look at the
[6:44] Speaker 3: last two and a half decades, most innovation has come
[6:48] Speaker 3: out of tech companies. Has come out of Google, It's
[6:51] Speaker 3: come out of Microsoft, Apple, Amazon in the western part
[6:56] Speaker 3: of the world, and it's come out of Tencent and
[6:58] Speaker 3: Ali Baba in China. But in India's case, we took
[7:02] Speaker 3: a different model of digital public infrastructure where the public
[7:06] Speaker 3: interest layer was created by the government on top of
[7:09] Speaker 3: which we've allowed private sector to innovate. And these are
[7:13] Speaker 3: open source models, these are open APIs, They are interoperable.
[7:17] Speaker 3: So you know, between twenty fifteen twenty seventeen, we opened
[7:21] Speaker 3: five hundred and fifty million bank accounts. Today India does
[7:24] Speaker 3: about eleven x more fast payments than what USA and
[7:29] Speaker 3: Europe do. We do forty six percent of the real
[7:32] Speaker 3: time fast payments in the world.
[7:34] Speaker 4: We do four x of what China does.
[7:36] Speaker 3: So we've created a whole range of digital public infrastructure,
[7:40] Speaker 3: including an education, digit Loca, many other So that's a
[7:44] Speaker 3: huge innovation. But the other big thing that's happened is
[7:48] Speaker 3: that we started the startup India movement. In twenty sixteen,
[7:51] Speaker 3: there were just about one hundred and fifty six startups.
[7:53] Speaker 3: Today you have a over about one hundred thousand startups
[7:57] Speaker 3: and many of these startups actually what they did then.
[8:00] Speaker 3: Once we'd created the digital public infrastructure layer, you're seeing
[8:05] Speaker 3: many startups doing a cash less, a paperless credit.
[8:10] Speaker 4: It's all cash less, paperless.
[8:12] Speaker 3: There are many other startups who then went in and
[8:15] Speaker 3: started creating wealth. So you have a startups like Zeroeda,
[8:19] Speaker 3: grow up Stock which started creating taking the stock market
[8:23] Speaker 3: into Tire to tire three cities. Almost twenty nine percent
[8:27] Speaker 3: of the stock market is controlled by a young startup
[8:29] Speaker 3: like Zeroeda. Then you had a number of young startups
[8:32] Speaker 3: like go Digit and Acho which took insurance a cash less,
[8:37] Speaker 3: paperless you can get an insurance policy in India in
[8:40] Speaker 3: less than a minute to all people in rural areas.
[8:45] Speaker 4: So what we've seen is huge disruption, huge.
[8:48] Speaker 3: Innovation on the back of the digital public infrastructure.
[8:52] Speaker 2: Right and in the book you talk about platforms and
[8:56] Speaker 2: innovative ecosystems. I want to say a little bit more
[8:59] Speaker 2: about that.
[9:00] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[9:00] Speaker 3: So, actually, the model that we've created, if you look
[9:04] Speaker 3: at the world, the model that we've created is that
[9:07] Speaker 3: every Indian has a digital identity, every Indian has a
[9:10] Speaker 3: bank account, every Indian has a mobile and the cost
[9:14] Speaker 3: of acquisition of the customer has fallen way radically. In India,
[9:20] Speaker 3: it used to be about thirty five dollars to acquire
[9:22] Speaker 3: a customer. It's come down to one dollar because you
[9:25] Speaker 3: can now acquire a customer on the basis of his
[9:28] Speaker 3: digital identity. In Europe and USA, it's all paperwork, it's
[9:33] Speaker 3: all you know.
[9:35] Speaker 4: So it's still over one hundred dollars.
[9:37] Speaker 3: To acquire a customer. The cost of acquisition of customer has.
[9:41] Speaker 4: Fallen very radically.
[9:42] Speaker 3: The challenge in the world today is that you have
[9:45] Speaker 3: about four billion people who do not have an identity.
[9:49] Speaker 3: There are two and a half billion people who do
[9:50] Speaker 3: not have a bank account. One thirty three countries in
[9:53] Speaker 3: the world do not have a fast payment mechanism. So
[9:57] Speaker 3: if you want to provide, if you want to transform
[9:59] Speaker 3: the world, world, you need to take the India model
[10:02] Speaker 3: of digital public infrastructure to the rest of the world
[10:05] Speaker 3: and transform many of the global South countries to really
[10:08] Speaker 3: uplift them.
[10:09] Speaker 4: Very sharply great.
[10:11] Speaker 2: It's great to see that sort of business model approach
[10:14] Speaker 2: to SCALU.
[10:15] Speaker 3: And it's all private sector innovation, it's all young startups,
[10:18] Speaker 3: they're all national assets of India.
[10:23] Speaker 2: And are there clearly you're very passionate about platforms. Are
[10:27] Speaker 2: there any other innovations that you think we should keep
[10:29] Speaker 2: our eye on that you think are particularly important?
[10:34] Speaker 3: John, I think one of the biggest stories the energy
[10:37] Speaker 3: transition story of India, and I think it's important to
[10:41] Speaker 3: realize this that we do about one hundred and eighty
[10:45] Speaker 3: five gigaward of clean energy. Now we are on the
[10:49] Speaker 3: road to do major transformation. My personal view is that
[10:54] Speaker 3: not merely renewables, but India will do path breaking work
[10:59] Speaker 3: in greenheight rogen. Will be the cheapest producer of green
[11:02] Speaker 3: hydrogen simply because of climatic conditions. The size and scale
[11:07] Speaker 3: of India and very good young entrepreneurship. And actually my
[11:11] Speaker 3: view is that the green hydrogen mission etc. When implemented,
[11:15] Speaker 3: will lead to actually India becoming And you know, the
[11:18] Speaker 3: challenge is that even if you were to do all
[11:22] Speaker 3: your electricity clean electricity, it will be only twenty percent
[11:26] Speaker 3: of energy.
[11:27] Speaker 4: You need to.
[11:27] Speaker 3: Really decarbonize hard to abate sectors like refinery, steel, cement, fertilizer,
[11:34] Speaker 3: all that.
[11:35] Speaker 4: That can't be done with electricity. You need green hydrogen.
[11:39] Speaker 3: And my view is that by twenty forty seven India
[11:42] Speaker 3: will be a global champion of green hydrogen, will actually
[11:45] Speaker 3: be instead of importing two hundred billion worth of fossil
[11:49] Speaker 3: fuel which we do now, will be actually exporting energy.
[11:53] Speaker 2: So a couple of other questions around the transition now
[11:56] Speaker 2: we've made to the energy transition CCS. So what are
[12:00] Speaker 2: your thoughts on CCS. It's a devised opinion often.
[12:04] Speaker 3: So my view is that we need to do more
[12:08] Speaker 3: work technologically on CCS to bring down to make it
[12:11] Speaker 3: commercially viable. I think we need to do more work
[12:15] Speaker 3: in terms of establishing its commercial viability. I think more
[12:20] Speaker 3: resources need to be put in there. You know, the
[12:23] Speaker 3: challenge for the world is that there's no shortage of resources.
[12:26] Speaker 3: I mean, you talked about a couple of trillion the
[12:29] Speaker 3: world is. The world is today sitting on three hundred
[12:32] Speaker 3: and fifty trillion dollars. Pension funds and investment asset companies
[12:36] Speaker 3: are sitting on one hundred and fifty trillion dollar. We
[12:39] Speaker 3: need to de risk some of these areas to allow
[12:42] Speaker 3: more resources to flow in.
[12:44] Speaker 4: So no shortage of funds.
[12:45] Speaker 3: But my view is that long distance transportation etc. Will first,
[12:51] Speaker 3: you know, and refinery. For instance, India consumes twelve percent
[12:55] Speaker 3: of the gray hydrogen, so the first route will be
[12:58] Speaker 3: green hydrogen because will be easier to make it commercially doable.
[13:02] Speaker 4: It's technologically established, so.
[13:05] Speaker 3: Green hydrogen, and it's in its liquid form green ammonia,
[13:08] Speaker 3: which can then be exported to the rest of the world.
[13:11] Speaker 3: Green hydrogen will be the first bet. A little more
[13:14] Speaker 3: work on ccs is required.
[13:16] Speaker 2: Okay, great, that's very clear, thank you. And then the
[13:18] Speaker 2: other key key area of circularity. Again, that's another area
[13:22] Speaker 2: that devines people. What are your thoughts on there?
[13:25] Speaker 3: So I'm a great believer that circularity is critical. It's
[13:31] Speaker 3: not possible to do complete new areas of growth. All
[13:36] Speaker 3: these are new areas of growth. I mean you have
[13:38] Speaker 3: a scenario in China where two wheeler, where vehicles, four
[13:43] Speaker 3: four where wheeler electric vehicles are all dumped.
[13:47] Speaker 4: They become the biggest dumping grounds today in China.
[13:50] Speaker 3: I mean cities are after cities are just become dumping
[13:54] Speaker 3: grounds of two wheelers, three wheelers and four wheelers because
[13:57] Speaker 3: every year you have a new electric model coming in
[14:00] Speaker 3: I mean lithium, cobalt nickel.
[14:03] Speaker 4: We are not importers.
[14:04] Speaker 3: We've not taken over colonies and countries in Africa to
[14:08] Speaker 3: do mining. But you will need battery and it's very
[14:11] Speaker 3: important that when you do battery for both on the
[14:14] Speaker 3: electric side, on the mobility side and for the mobile
[14:17] Speaker 3: telephony side.
[14:19] Speaker 4: We need a vast number of.
[14:21] Speaker 3: Young Indian companies which get into the business of recycling.
[14:25] Speaker 3: But more important than that is that we need from
[14:29] Speaker 3: the design process itself, and the design process is very
[14:33] Speaker 3: critical that.
[14:34] Speaker 4: Later to do it will be very difficult.
[14:37] Speaker 3: You need from the design process itself in the manufacturing
[14:40] Speaker 3: that everything must become an input into another production level
[14:45] Speaker 3: and that will require a huge amount of innovative work
[14:48] Speaker 3: to be done to drive circularity. It can be done
[14:51] Speaker 3: by rules and regulations too much. If you put in
[14:53] Speaker 3: too many rules, the rules hamper ease of doing business.
[14:57] Speaker 3: You need to push the limits on innovation.
[15:00] Speaker 2: And we talked about a few different technological options. If
[15:04] Speaker 2: you're speaking to entrepreneurs or business people funding entrepreneurs, which
[15:09] Speaker 2: sectors do you think right now in India? Which are
[15:11] Speaker 2: the ones that you would really focus on.
[15:14] Speaker 3: I think India is the cusp of electric mobility revolution.
[15:20] Speaker 3: Everybody will buy electric vehicle. Whether we've already done a
[15:25] Speaker 3: substantial amount on two wheelers three wheelers, is India consumes
[15:29] Speaker 3: about seventy percent of our vehicles are two wheelers, and
[15:32] Speaker 3: we've done a lot on two wheelers and three wheelers.
[15:36] Speaker 3: We are now going to buy fifty thousand, almost close
[15:38] Speaker 3: to fifty thousand electric buses. So this is a huge
[15:41] Speaker 3: opportunity for making India in electric buses. Every two three
[15:46] Speaker 3: tier cities will only have electric buses. Actually, then that
[15:49] Speaker 3: opens up the opportunity for vast number of fast chargers
[15:53] Speaker 3: in India, and that opens up a vast opportunity because
[15:56] Speaker 3: India is a great automobile manufacturer. When the world it
[16:00] Speaker 3: is moving from combustion to electric, you're moving from two
[16:04] Speaker 3: hundred parts to just twenty five paths, and India needs
[16:07] Speaker 3: to become a global champion of electric vehicle manufacturing to
[16:10] Speaker 3: export the rest.
[16:11] Speaker 4: Of the world.
[16:12] Speaker 2: Great again, very clear, emaability is to your top choice.
[16:16] Speaker 2: And then one final question, we have one minute left.
[16:21] Speaker 2: You talked about growth earlier and actually the World Bank
[16:23] Speaker 2: says GDP in India will probably five times bigger by
[16:27] Speaker 2: mid century. We've talked about decarbonizing. What would be your
[16:32] Speaker 2: key message for the leaders in this room for green growth?
[16:35] Speaker 2: How to grow and decarbonize? What would be the key
[16:38] Speaker 2: thing for them to think about.
[16:41] Speaker 3: So I'm a great believer that the only way India
[16:44] Speaker 3: should grow net zero's net positive for India, it's important
[16:48] Speaker 3: to go digital and go green. If you go digital
[16:51] Speaker 3: and go green, you will attract your companies, will attract
[16:55] Speaker 3: greater value, You'll be able to attract capital from the
[16:58] Speaker 3: rest of the world. So get down to just focusing
[17:02] Speaker 3: on going green. There's no shortage of capital in the world.
[17:05] Speaker 4: Let me tell you.
[17:06] Speaker 3: I mean the world is flushed with funds right now.
[17:09] Speaker 3: All you need to do is to push the limits
[17:11] Speaker 3: on going green.
[17:13] Speaker 2: Great, So they're aligned going green and being successful as
[17:17] Speaker 2: the same. Yeah, and being digital. Thank you very much,
[17:21] Speaker 2: so thank you. You joined us seven years ago, you
[17:23] Speaker 2: join us again today. Please join me in thanking, mister Cant.
[17:37] Speaker 1: Bloomberg n EF is a service provided by Bloomberg Finance
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