It is truly rare these days to have someone in the country whose ideas are original and unprecedented. Union minister for road transport & highways Nitin Gadkari always manages to bring something new to the market.
Gadkari on Sunday, March 3, gave vent to his idea of "making urea from urine" at a gathering of young innovators at the Mayor Innovation Awards function of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation. He said that if India has the potential to undertake this process, the country will not need to import fertiliser.
Gadkari brought up a number of examples to explain the need to make recycling a top priority for the country. He spoke about the importance of innovation and how biofuels can be extracted from natural waste. Even human urine can be useful for making biofuel and it can also yield ammonium sulfate and nitrogen, he stated.
"I have asked for storage of urine at airports. We import urea, but if we start storing urine of entire country then we will not need to import urea, so much potential it has, and nothing will be wasted," news agency PTI quoted the minister.
"Other people do not cooperate with me because all my ideas are fantastic," the minister, known for his outspoken ways, said.
"Even the (municipal) corporation will not help, because in government, people are trained to be like (blinkered) bulls who walk
in the rut, not looking here and there," he said.
Gadkari's comments did, however, spur a frenzy of jokes and comments on Twitter.
GADKARI'S URINE TREATMENT FOR PLANTS
Back in 2015, Gadkari said something similar that he once used his own urine on plants in his lawns at his 2, Motilal Nehru Marg residence, a bungalow that used to be the office of the former National Advisory Council headed by Sonia Gandhi and is just across the road from her 10, Janpath home.
"I started storing my urine in a plastic can. And after collecting all of it in a 50-litre can - I have a big bungalow in Delhi. It used to be Sonia Gandhi's bungalow. There is a one-acre field in the bungalow," Gadkari said in a video uploaded on YouTube by ABP Majha.
