Giving full marks to his council of ministers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday asked them to continue with the good work and spread the message of good governance among the people. Singling out road transport, highways & shipping minister Nitin Gadkari for special praise, the Prime Minister asked him to take the highway construction speed to 18 kilometres a day from the existing 12 kilometres a day.
According to sources privy to the development, Mr Gadkari has been asked by the Prime Minister to now give a major thrust to the shipping sector as the road sector is moving along satisfactorily. Sources denied that the review meeting had anything to do with the forthcoming Assembly elections in West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. They informed this newspaper that the Prime Minister did not discuss any political issue during the meeting and his only focus was on reviewing the performance of various ministries and spreading awareness among the general public about the various policy-oriented decisions being taken by the government.
In a marathon three-hour meeting with his entire team of Cabinet colleagues, Mr Modi kept his focus on infrastructure ministries, namely road transport & highways and shipping, railways, civil aviation and power.
