Nitin Gadkari: 'Government will run according to ministers, officers only have to say yes sir': Nitin Gadkari

Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has fiercely attacked the bureaucracy. He said that the government will not work according to the bureaucrats, you will work according to the ministers. He said that I always tell the officers that the government will not work as you say, you just have to say 'ji sir'. You have to implement what the minister is saying. The government will run according to us.

He said that, "Law should not become a hindrance in the work of the poor. The government has the right to break or set aside the law. This is what Mahatma Gandhi used to say. The government should not be run according to what the bureaucrats say. He said Gandhi Ji also used to say that if laws stop the path of development of the poor, then they should be broken. Nitin Gadkari recalled his tenure in the Manohar Joshi government of Maharashtra in the year 1995 and said that I always tell the bureaucrats that the government is according to your words. Won't work. You just have to say 'yes sir'. You have to implement what we ministers are saying. The government will work according to us.

Referring to Mahatma Gandhi, he said that Bapu used to say that no law can come in the way of doing good to the poor. I know that no law will come in the way of working for the welfare of the poor but if such a law comes in the way, then one should not hesitate to break it even 10 times. He told that in 1995, thousands of tribal children died due to malnutrition in Gadchiroli and Melghat regions of Maharashtra and villages had no roads. Forest laws were coming in the way of construction of roads. Referring to this, he said that the governments should break or bypass the laws of public interest and public good.

On the other hand, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said that the government has set a target of halving by 2024 about 1.5 lakh deaths every year due to road accidents in the country. He said that the work of removing black spots is going on by spending crores of rupees in this regard. Speaking at the program of NGO 'Jan Aakrosh' here, Gadkari said that every year in the country about 1.5 lakh people die in five lakh road accidents, while 3 lakh people are seriously injured.