Page 15 - Banking Finance March 2023

ROUNDUP

cation who do not use digital skills at looking at India because of this initia- ity. For the success of any project, we
work. tive," Rijiju said. need proven technology, economic vi-
ability, availability of raw materials and
In addition, it is also found that ad- Rijiju emphasised the need for institu-
marketability. All these are available in
vanced digital workers in India are tional arbitration to enhance the ease
India," Gadkari said. "I can even take
benefiting from more than just a boost of doing business and spoke on the
up projects with investment up to Rs 8
in their income. Moreover, 91% of government's action of setting up the
lakh crore-10 lakh crore, and to raise
workers who use advanced digital skills Arbitration Council of India, which is
funds I can go to the capital market.
to express higher job satisfaction, com- expected to incentivise arbitral institu-
People are waiting to invest in our
pared to 74% of workers with interme- tions to improve their functioning and
projects as these are viable," he added.
diate skills and 70% of workers with to bring uniformity of norms by fram-
basic digital skills. ing policies and holding training as well He pointed out that high quality infra-
as workshops. structure is key to attracting invest-
The study classifies basic digital skills as
ment and pushing industrial growth to
the ability to use email, word proces-
Lithium-inferred resources eradicate poverty. Gadkari said the
sors, other office productivity soft-
government's focus is on greenfield
ware, and social media. Intermediate discovered in Jammu and
expressways and highways to slash the
digital skills include drag-and-drop Kashmir cost of logistics from 18% of GDP at
website design, troubleshooting appli-
India has discovered lithium-inferred present to 9%, to make Indian products
cations, and data analysis. Advanced
resources to the tune of 5.9 million globally competitive. He said the gov-
digital skills include cloud architecture
tonnes in the Salal-Haimana area of ernment has taken up construction of
or maintenance, software or applica-
Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir. 10,000km of greenfield expressways
tion development, artificial intelligence and economic corridors with an invest-
Mines are at the preliminary explora-
(AI), and machine learning. ment of Rs 7 lakh crore.
tion stage (also called G3). Lithium is
one of the key elements used for mak- Air India orders 470 Air-
Rijiju stresses need for in-
ing EV batteries and other energy stor-
bus, Boeing planes
stitutional arbitration age products.
Tata-owned Air India's deal with the
While addressing the concluding ses- According to a statement, the Geo-
two aircraft makers, Airbus and
sion of the Delhi Arbitration Weekend logical Survey of India (GSI) report on
Boeing, to buy 470 aircraft is being
(DAW) organised by the Delhi Interna- lithium resources, along with 15 other
hailed as the largest deal in the history
tional Arbitration Centre, Union Law resource-bearing geological reports
of civil aviation, but it seems like this
Minister Kiren Rijiju extended the (that are in general exploration and
number could go up to as high as 840,
government's support to the recom- preliminary exploration stages) and 35
as per the airline's Chief Commercial
geological memoranda, were handed
mendations from the three-day event,
and Transformation Officer, Nipun
over to respective State governments
calling them "path-breaking".
Aggarwal.
during the 62nd Central Geological
Rijiju, who was the chief guest of the
Programming Board (CGPB) meeting. In a post on the professional network-
session, assured that "when courts ini-
ing site LinkedIn, Aggarwal wrote: "It
tiate certain actions, the support from is indeed a landmark moment in the
New roads will reduce the
the government is expected."
history of Air India and Indian aviation.
cost of logistics: Gadkari
"I feel so privileged to be part of an This order of 840 aircraft has been a
event which is court-driven. It is my There's no dearth of funds for infrastruc- culmination of a fascinating journey
ture development in India, and the that began almost two years ago start-
duty to ensure that whatever comes
out of all the recommendations of this government's target is to increase the ing with the Air India privatisation pro-
length of national highways (NHs) to 2 cess."
three-day intensive event, the govern-
lakh km by 2025, Union road transport
ment has to support it. It is not just This means Air India has the option to
and highways minister Nitin Gadkari
coming out of the blue. It is coming out buy an additional 370 planes from the
said at the ET Global Business Summit.
of deliberations and research. The aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Air-
whole global world of arbitration is "Projects in India have economic viabil- bus.
14 | 2023 | MARCH | BANKING FINANCE