DNA Mumbai Anniversary: Tête-à-Tête with Nitin Gadkari who has shown what it takes to build roads and highways

The ‘road’ to success is not easy to navigate, but with sheer hard work, drive and passion, Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has shown us what it takes to build roads and highways in India. A tête-à-tête with the man who gave India its first expressway – the Mumbai-Pune Expressway 

The year was 1996, the Sena- Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government was barely a year old in Maharashtra. Sena chief Bal Thackeray was traveling on the old Mumbai-Pune highway. The narrow, winding road would often witness severe traffic jams with even the smallest of accidents. To the Thackeray Sr’s misfortune, he got stuck in one such mega-jams and spent quite a few frustrating hours. As soon as he got back in Mumbai, he got Public Works Minister Nitin Gadkari to discuss a new road that would connect Maharashtra’s capital (Mumbai) with the cultural capital (Pune).

There was a reason Thackeray trusted Gadkari almost blindly when it came to ambitious projects such as the Expressway. Gadkari, whose hometown is Nagpur, was fairly unknown in Mumbai till he took over the ministry in the 1995 Manohar Joshi government. But he made his mark almost immediately with bold announcements such as 55 flyovers in Mumbai to ease traffic congestions on Mumbai roads.

And yet a brand new Mumbai-Pune Expressway that would allow cars to zip across in just two hours was bit too much to chew. Or so the experts thought. After several proposals and designs, the project seemed finally taking shape until the issue of financing came up. Who will pay for the construction? Who will pay to drive on the expressway when there’s an alternate road was available and was toll-free? What about the environmental issues?

But Gadkari was determined. “I have realised one thing: if your cause is good, there is no dearth of money,” says the minister who has consistently been ranked as the one of the most efficient ministers in the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet. He decided to go ahead with the project nevertheless, and despite all hurdles – land acquisition, legal, financial, legislature, built the first expressway in India that became a model for the rest of the country.

Today, thousands of cars, trucks and other vehicles use the expressway and Gadkari’s confidence that people will pay if they get good service has paid off.

There are few voices who ask if toll must be paid after so many years, and yet those who use the road, will vouch that the toll they pay is well spent and worth every paisa given the quality of the road. One must also mention how Gadkari used to reel off statistics on how petrol-diesel worth thousands of crores of rupees will be saved over years once roads were widened, flyovers were built and people would look at him in disbelief. While the savings of petrol-diesel may not be immediately visible to people at large, they could see the relief that Gadkari promised.

Each time he held press conferences to announce fresh projects, Gadkari oozed with confidence. One remembers he had put up a poster in his office- American roads are not good because America is rich, but America is rich because American roads are good, a famous quote by US president John F Kennedy. Gadkari swore by that. Gadkari worked like a maniac (he still does) to see Maharashtra roads were transformed during his tenure as the PWD minister. Thackeray became a big fan of Gadkari even though he belonged to BJP (yes, the two parties squabbled even then) and had confessed to him, he would want him (Gadkari) to be the CM in case the saffron alliance was voted back to power. One might say Thackeray Sr wouldn’t have done so, but it still says a lot about his faith in Gadkari’s abilities. He even nicknamed him Pulkari (man who builds bridges) and Roadkari (man who builds roads), for his achievements such as Mumbai-Pune expressway and flyovers in the city.

Gadkari’s achievements become even more spectacular when one takes into an account that he is not a civil engineer. And yet he keeps coming up with ideas and projects that may appear outlandish. Take for instance the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, that has now become Mumbai’s most famous landmark after Gateway of India. It was during Gadkari’s tenure that the groundbreaking ceremony was held for the bridge although his government was not voted back to power and the work was later completed by the Congress-NCP government. Even the construction of Mumbai-Pune expressway was considered inconceivable during the timespan of four years, but it was Gadkari’s vision and speed that it was made possible.

Gadkari’s rise in Maharashtra politics is even more praiseworthy in a state like Maharashtra where most chief ministers have been Marathas, a community that holds reins of power in its hands at most levels of the society. 

It is only during saffron governments that the state has been helmed by Brahmins (Manohar Joshi between 1995-1998 and Devendra Fadnavis from 2014 till date). Gadkari doesn’t feel his caste ever became a barrier in his political career.

“I am a firm believer that people look at your work finally, not your caste. They saw my work in Nagpur, then in Mumbai and now in Delhi. What matters is what you do when you get power. Are you using it for people’s benefit? That’s the only thing that matters,” says Gadkari.

That’s another facet of Gadkari’s career as a politician. Barring a small period when controversies over his Poorti Group of Companies threatened his otherwise blemishless career, Gadkari hardly ever faced charges of corruption. Even when he planned and executed projects worth crores of lakhs of rupees as Maharashtra PWD minister and now as Union minister. Congress-NCP legislators often threatened to expose wrongdoings in his ministry, and yet, they could hardly pin down the man. How did he manage it?

“That’s because we kept our processes transparent. We were always open to scrutiny and we had nothing to hide,” he says. When it came to awarding smaller projects, Gadkari decided to cut the red tape altogether and declared he didn’t mind giving the projects to unemployed but qualified engineers in the state. His risks never backfired- his Build, Own, Operate and Transfer initiative became a norm in successive governments and opened up new avenues for state governments to complete public projects.

Did he ever become nervous, frustrated over delays, opposition to projects? “Where is the time? There is always something new coming up,” he says as his aide shows a video of a Vidarbha River that was rejuvenated this year thanks to Gadkari’s department’s unique idea. 

“This river had virtually died. We decided to dredge it and deepen it by digging out rocky portion in 8-km stretch. The soil and crushed stone from the river was used in building road. Thus the dredging and digging was funded for by the contractor who got crushed stone at much cheaper rate. The river started flowing after almost a decade and now the water levels in the area have gone up, thus erasing the water shortage in the area. We have now decided to replicate this across 40 such small rivers,” says Gadkari.

The minister is also picture in contrast to the fringe that raises shrill voice over seemingly less important issues even as Gadkari keeps (quite literally) floating new ideas and then brings them to fruition without making much ado. Be it the bus-in-the-air project, buses that run on ethanol, electric vehicle policy amongst many more.

“People bounce off ideas. I discuss them with my officials. We work on those that are feasible. And most of them are feasible. I don’t do anything special. I back my team. They know they have my support,” he signs off.