India / YouTube pays me ₹4 lakh per month for huge viewership of my lectures: Gadkari

New Delhi: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday opened up about his experiences during the Covid pandemic and shared how he utilised that time.

While speaking at an event in Haryana, where he had gone to review the progress of the new Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, Nitin Gadkari said, "In Covid-19 time, I did two things - I started cooking at home and giving lectures through video conference."

"I delivered many lectures online, which were uploaded on YouTube. Owing to huge viewership, YouTube now pays me Rs 4 lakh per month," he added.

Recalling an incident from his past, the union minister of road transport and highways said that he once ordered the demolition of his father-in-law's home without telling his wife.

"I was newly married,” Gadkari said, cracking up about the incident. "My father-in-law's house was in the middle of the road. Without telling my wife, I had ordered the demolition of my father-in-law's house."

The minister added that officials informed him that he, too, has a house there and that it needed to be razed for constructing the road.

Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar, Gurugram Lok Sabha member Rao Inderjit Singh and senior officials of the state govt, district administration, and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) were also present at the event.

The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, being built at the cost of around ₹95,000 crore, would be completed by March 2023 with a majority of the work having already been allotted to contractors, Gadkari said after reviewing the status of the ongoing project work at Lohtaki village in Gurugram.

The union minister said that work on around 160 kilometres of the highway that falls in Haryana is expected to be completed by March 2022. A part of the road from Delhi to Dausa in Rajasthan and from Vadodara to Ankleshwar will be built by March 2022.