Gadkari To Poorly Maintained Eastern Peripheral Expressway Operators: We Will Not Spare You

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari frequently stays in the news for one reason or another. His name appears in headlines at least once a week. This time, there’s a report in which the minister has threatened operators responsible for the poorly maintained sections of the Eastern Peripheral Expressway. He warned the operators, stating that the government will not spare them.

Nitin Gadkari was attending a tree plantation drive titled ‘Ek Ped Maa Ke Naam’ as part of the ‘Swachhata Hi Seva 2024 – Swabhav Swachhata – Sanskar Swachhata’ campaign. The event was organized in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, and the minister, along with his convoy, used the Eastern Peripheral Expressway to reach the venue.

During this journey, he noticed the poor condition of the road and decided to issue a warning to the operators or agencies responsible for maintaining it. He said, “We will not spare you. We’ll ensure that the bank guarantees of those doing bad work are forfeited, and after this, we will blacklist you and not allow you to apply for new tenders.”

“The office bearers of associations are sitting here (in the audience at the event), the roads should be well-maintained. I saw the road today; it’s very poorly maintained. We will not spare you. We’ll ensure that the bank guarantees of those doing bad work are forfeited, and after this, we will blacklist you and not allow you to apply for new tenders.”

While addressing the event, the minister discussed the road development projects undertaken by the current government and ministry. He also spoke about future plans and gave an approximate idea of the expenditure on these projects. As he was attending an event related to the environment, he also talked about the government’s initiatives to reduce pollution.

As usual, Nitin Gadkari didn’t miss the opportunity to discuss biofuels, ethanol, and other initiatives he is pushing in the Indian automotive sector. He mentioned that the ministry is currently studying various options to formulate a plan that could help reduce pollution in the country.

While the government plans to take action against agencies that are not properly maintaining the roads, the minister also acknowledged that some operators are performing timely maintenance work, and the government has taken note of them as well. These contractors will be recognized and rewarded by the government for their efforts. The minister added that those who do good work will be rewarded, while those who do poor work will be removed from the system.

He is one of those ministers who pushes for electric cars and has been constantly asking people to scrap their old cars and go for new ones to reduce pollution on the road. Recently, The ministry of highways and road transport (MoRTH), headed by Nitin Gadkari, also issued a hefty Rs. 50 lakh fine on the contractor who built the broken section of the newly constructed Amritsar-Jamnagar expressway.

Nitin Gadkari was also the person who made FASTags mandatory for cars to reduce long queues at toll plazas on highways. However, certain problems arose with FASTags. Now, the government is planning to introduce a new toll collection system that will work via GPS.

This new toll collection system is called the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). The GNSS will track vehicles’ locations in real-time and charge users based on the distance they travel on toll roads.