Nitin Gadkari, the minister of road transport and highways, has been accused of many things. But not even his severest critic will call him inefficient. Hailed as the “best-performing minister in the Modi government” within a couple of years of being named a cabinet minister, Gadkari’s claim to fame is getting things done. There may be murmurs about how he gets things done, but there’s no question about the fact that he does get them done – and fast.
His ruthless efficiency is perhaps one of the main reasons that he’s been given charge of the country’s highway system. Road projects have been dear to the BJP ever since Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister. Vajpayee’s dream project was the Golden Quadrilateral, a network of highways to connect the major cities. We’ve come a long way since, and today, the road projects being spoken of are expressways and hi-tech corridors between important cities.