BENGALURU: Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has criticised the Indian Road Congress (IRC) — the apex body of highway engineers in India — stating that it is functioning like a political party instead of being an independent and impartial body.
He offered to provide grants, both from the Union and state governments and land in Delhi to IRC, to set up a permanent management and research institution to make Indian roads better.
Gadkari was speaking at an international seminar on Advances in Bridge Management, organised by the Indian Roads Congress in association with the World Road Association (PIARC) and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) with the support from the Karnataka government held in Bengaluru on Thursday.
“We need an independent, impartial and quality conscious approach,” the Union Minister elaborated.
Giving an example of Worli Sea Link in Mumbai, Gadkari said, “Even after 26 years, the expansion joints are in perfect condition. However, I do not see such perfection in other projects. Like how a spark neglected can burn a house, engineers and contractors are making compromises.”
Stating that there were many complaints about the poor quality roads, Gadkari stressed that quality is the priority and he will not compromise on it. “For some reason which I do not know, lot of compromises are made. I will create a world record by suspending people and blacklist contractors,” he said.
He opined that he doesn’t understand why engineers take so much time to take decisions about projects. Time has come to make bridge construction mandatory in pre-cast and that white topped roads are the solutions to heavy rain problems, he said, advising IRC to adopt new technology and build better roads in India.
Karnataka PWD Minister Satish Jarkiholi said that recent rains and floods have created a problem in road infrastructure, especially in the Western Ghats where bridges have collapsed.