Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday complained that he is blamed for road problems even when they are built by state governments.
But, he said, that has never been reported. Speaking at the Festival of Thinkers lecture series in Pune on Monday, Gadkari said that 27 years ago, he built the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and claimed it has not developed any potholes to date.
The union minister lamented that he gets blamed even when a road built by a state government caves in. “During my tenure, the Forest Department did not grant permission, so I could not construct the ‘missing link’ road. The state government has now built that missing link road.
When issues arose with it, I was targeted on social media, even though the project was executed by the Maharashtra government,” Gadkari said. Drawing a comparison with the construction of the Konkan Railway, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis rejected criticism of the ‘Missing Link’ project and said the government would implement additional safety measures suggested by experts while asserting that the engineering achievement should not be judged by a single incident. “Here, there was only slippage in the upper wearing coat,” Verma said, adding that repair work was completed before 5 pm on Sunday and traffic was moving normally on the expressway.
Responding to questions over construction quality, Verma said such technical issues could occasionally arise on long stretches of asphalt roads. Verma also said there was no proposal at present for any separate inquiry into the incident, describing it as a routine technical issue that was rectified immediately.
