Politics will not stop development works in West Bengal: Gadkari

Kolkata: Union Minister for Transport Nitin Gadkari on Monday said politics will not hinder development works in West Bengal and pledged full assistance to complete ongoing projects in the state. [caption id=“attachment_1713579” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Nitin Gadkari said politics will not hamper development in Bengal. AP[/caption] Gadkari, who promised to visit the city soon to meet the government leadership, said he would work towards resolving hurdles in stalled development projects. “I want to work for development of West Bengal… There will be no politics in development works. As a minister I will offer my full co-operation to build roads,” Gadkari, who also holds additional charge of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water and Sanitation, said while interacting with media through video-conferencing. Gadkari said 32 Trinamool Congress’ MPs had met him earlier where he had communicated the Centre’s wish to help the state government. “I am glad that they (MPs) updated Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. She had given me time (to meet her) but I could not come due to launch of an important project,” the minister said. During his visit to Kolkata, the union minister will take up issues like broadening NH-34, Sagar port and inland waterways. The minister also said he will try to activate “State Supportive Agreement” which is aimed at getting state’s help in executing road projects. Gadkari seemed optimistic about NH-34 work which is stalled for long and said there were some problems which had been solved. “There are problems of land acquisitions and encroachments,” he said. On a different subject, Gadkari said lots of projects are closed and needed help from state governments. The closed projects are mostly in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala. “Without help of the state government how can the projects could be completed,” he said. Asked about dredging of Kolkata Port, Gadkari said government was trying to use a model to reduce the dredging cost burden on Centre aimed at improving the performance of Dredging Corporation of India. PTI