No plan to stop petrol, diesel vehicles: Nitin Gadkari

Union minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said the government is not planning to stop petrol and diesel vehicles. He said the government is promoting e-vehicles and people will slowly accept it. Gadkari’s statement came after the NITI Ayog had announced banning two-wheelers under 150cc by 2025 and three-wheelers vehicles by 2023.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 200th listing on the NSE EMERGE, Gadkari, who is the minister of micro, small and medium enterprises and road transport and highways, said the MSME sector contributes 29% to the GDP, and the government plans to take it to 50% in the next few years. He said merchant bankers should reduce fee structure for SMEs so that more of such companies can get listed on the SME exchanges.

Typically, merchant bankers charge anywhere between 3% and 5% of the issue size for normal initial public offering (IPO), but for SMEs, they charge between 8% and 10% as the issue size is very low.