Union Minister of Road, Highways Nitin Gadkari on October 26 inaugurated the new second building of NHAI in Nagpur via video conferencing. The new NHAI building is a masterpiece in itself and has world-class facilities. To name a few it consists of ground plus seven floors, 2 basements, floor area of 11,920 sq. m, can accommodate around 400 people, multi-level parking space of around 225 cars, canteen and recreation facilities for the working staff and ventilation, lightning, fire system, the security system is been fully taken care of.
The total cost of constructing this building is around 135 crore and with proper facilities and if managed properly the building can save around Rs 50 lakh every year. Union Minister of State of Roadways, Highway General V K Singh was also present at the function.
Minister Nitin Gadkari didn’t seem happy. He had some harsh and tough things to say. He said that even though it is the custom of such kind of program that you should congratulate the Chairman and the officials at this moment but I am helpless and my hands are tired and I can’t congratulate you all at this moment.
Gadkari said, “In 2008, it was decided that the building will be made, in 2011 the tender for the building was awarded if for a project that costs around 250 crore takes 9 years to complete there is nothing to celebrate or congratulate as of this moment. He said, “I cannot blame the present GM, CGM because they were not responsible for the delay but the great personalities who held the positions before them are”.
Gadkari also said that the mentality and the tendency of the people for the NHAI officials is that they are very lazy, and unable to perform the work on time and I hate to admit it that the delay caused by this project proves that they are correct. To make sure a situation like this does not repeat itself it is very important that the NHAI officials do some serious introspection, change the quality of raw materials as it is very bad, and identify the bottlenecks of the work for the unnecessary delay and so that it does not happen again in the future. He said I cannot question the integrity and ethics of NHAI but some serious thinking needs to be done and some harsh decisions need to be taken. The bad decisions of NHAI have increased the expenditure of the project by a minimum 50 to 60 crore.
He has appealed to the people to change the non-performing people of the organization and bring a nice, qualitative, and corruption-free working system.
