Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, presided over the 10th meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Transport Ministers in New Delhi. This year, India will preside over the SCO, which now has eight member countries: India, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. During the meeting, all member countries agreed on the “Concept of Cooperation of the SCO Member States to Decarbonize Transport, Promote Digital Transformation, and Innovative Technologies to Achieve Greater Efficiency and Sustainability.”
A special working group has been formed to encourage collaboration among SCO member nations in the sphere of transport. This group will organise meetings to share expertise and best practises on lowering carbon emissions in transport, encouraging digital transformation, and deploying innovative transport technology for more sustainable and efficient transport.
Gadkari stated that the SCO Member States must work together for research and development and to bring innovations to road transport to develop efficient solutions to current challenges in this sector. These challenges include bringing about a paradigm shift by adopting green and clean fuels, developing technologies that improve the efficiency and reliability of transport systems, and bringing about sustainability in the development of the road construction sector.
According to the Union Minister, we believe that an approach based on collaboration and cooperation among SCO member countries will enable us to promote sustainable transport development, lower carbon emissions to improve quality of life, and improve the efficiency of transport systems within the SCO regions. This is reflected in India’s pledge to reach net zero emissions by 2070 under the five-point “Panchamrita” policy unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021.
According to Gadkari, as SCO Transport Ministers, we can send a unifying statement reiterating our commitment to the SCO by addressing the difficulties facing the transport industry and bringing solutions that will enable us to create an ecosystem for collaboration and cooperation.
