Union Road Transport and Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari has said he will revamp National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and remove non-performing employees.
"The NHAI needed urgent reforms. The time had come to act against the non-performing employees," he said while inaugurating the new building of the NHAI at Dwaraka in Delhi.
"We have been unable to identify performance bottlenecks. Many committees were formed, they gave their report. But these corrupt and inept and lazy people of NHAI are so powerful that despite orders, they take wrong decisions," he said.
The NHAI is a nodal agency to build national highways.
The Minister also expressed unhappiness over progress in constructing the new building. The building was planned in 2008 and construction started in 2011 and it has been completed in 2020.
"Why so much delay in completing construction of building Rs 250 crore worth building. In nine years period, two governments came to Centre and 8 chairmen served the NHAI. Who is responsible for the delay," Gadkari said.
"The current chairman and members are unrelated to it. But the great personalities who worked on it from 2011 to 2020, If possible, their photos should be put up in the building. They delayed decisions for nine years," he said.
"We say with pride that we will complete the Delhi-Mumbai expressway in two to three years. It is worth Rs 80,000 to 1 lakh crore. But it took so many years to complete this project of Rs 250 crore," Gadkari said.
(Published 29 October 2020, 14:11 IST)
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