After PM berates ‘babus’, Gadkari says not all bad

Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, February 21

Close on the heels of Prime Minister Narendra Modi wondering in the Lok Sabha about the dependence on “babus” (bureaucrats), Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has showered praise on “babus” saying “not all were bad”.

Gadkari said when he was “annoyed”, he would sometimes say “something strange” to officials. Citing an instance, he said while inaugurating a National Highways Authority of India project, he said many things and media reports of the event gave an impression he was critical of “babus and engineers”.

Addressing the 221st mid-term council meeting of the Indian Roads Congress today, the minister said he “felt bad” about the reports as “there were many good people too who were working hard”.

Gadkari blamed the media for allegedly blowing out of proportion an adverse comment and painting the whole bureaucracy with the same brush. He lauded senior NHAI officer Manoj Kumar, entrusted with the responsibility of supervising the Delhi-Mumbai express highway. “Under Manoj Kumar’s leadership, people are working day and night. The cost of the project, expected to be completed in a year and a half, is Rs 1 lakh crore,” he said.

The minister said NHIDCL personnel engaged in the Zojila tunnel project in Ladakh deserved praise as they were working at -12 degrees Celsius. He said whatever praise he got as a minister was due to the hard work of the officers and engineers in his ministry.

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