Will plain-speaking Gadkari trigger NHAI reform?

Road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari’s caustic public remarks against the ‘non-performing’ lot among the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) officers at a recent event may have breached the unwritten norm of restraint that the top political executive shows in dealing with the bureaucracy it relies on, but have elicited approving commentary from a wider audience.

On Monday, while inaugurating NHAI’s new office building at Dwarka in New Delhi, which took nine years for completion, through video-conferencing from Nagpur, Gadkari said NHAI had become “a breeding ground for inefficient officials, who are incapable of taking decisions and prefer to refer every matter to committees.” It was time to show the exit door to such ‘non-performing assets’ who only complicate matters and delay projects by creating obstacles, he said.