Gadkari refuses to open the Mumbai-Goa highway: 'I'm ashamed at the delays'
The road is 93-94% complete, ten years after its original deadline. The minister says he will skip the inauguration and wants a record number of contractors blacklisted.
India's road transport minister has said he will not attend the inauguration of the Mumbai-Goa highway because he is embarrassed by how long it has taken, and that he intends to blacklist the contractors responsible.
"I have decided I will not go for the inauguration of the Mumbai-Goa highway because I'm ashamed at the delays," Nitin Gadkari said, speaking in Goa on Wednesday at the opening of a different project — the six-lane elevated corridor at Porvorim in the north of the state.
Ten years past the deadline
The Mumbai-Goa highway runs 555 km, of which 460 km lies in Maharashtra, ending at Patradevi in Sindhudurg district. Responsibility for that stretch is divided: the National Highways Authority of India is building 84 km, while the remaining 376 km sits with the state public works department.
The widening work was originally scheduled for completion in 2016.
Gadkari said he had been told at a meeting the previous day that the highway was now 93 to 94 per cent complete, and set out how he intends to verify it.
"In October, I shall deboard at the Mumbai airport and come to Goa by car… to see the status of its completion," he said.
He also said he had given up waiting for an auspicious date to open the road.
A record he does not want
The minister was blunt about where he places responsibility, and framed it against his ministry's own record.
"The Mumbai-Goa Highway has been quite delayed, and the contractors have failed. What has happened is very unfortunate," he said.
He went on to say that his department had set over seven world records for various works, but that he now wished it would hold the record for blacklisting and debarring the largest number of contractors, and for suspending officials, within a single year.
No contractors have been named, and no blacklisting has been formally announced.
The project he did open
On the Porvorim elevated corridor, Gadkari said the road would cut travel time and ease the daily commute in Goa. It is expected to relieve congestion in particular on routes towards North Goa's beach belt.
He used the occasion to press for the state's highways to be developed as "green highways" through scientific landscaping and what he described as innovative infrastructure, calling for studies to identify which tree species best absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen.
"There should be no compromise on the quality of road works," he said.
The wider argument
Gadkari linked infrastructure directly to economic outcomes, arguing that better water, power, transport and communication infrastructure attracts investment and creates jobs.
That argument is the standard case for public capital spending, and the Mumbai-Goa highway is an awkward illustration of it: a decade late, and still not finished, on a route connecting one of India's largest cities to one of its most visited states.