Nitin Gadkari makes ₹3 lakh monthly from YouTube, has close to 25 crore followers on social media

Nitin Gadkari, the Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, divulged in a fireside chat at Fortune India’s Most Powerful Women awards that his monthly income from YouTube is to the tune of ₹3 lakhs. “I am going to hit 25 crore followers on social media soon,” Gadkari said amid rapturous applause at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai. “I follow social media…but I’m not very media-savvy. I’m fortunate for the following I have,” he added.

According to Gadkari’s YouTube channel—where he posts a gamut of videos, including those of his tours, official visits, inspections, and inaugurations, among others—he currently has 13 lakh subscribers. On X, he has about 1.53 crore followers, making him one of the most-followed politicians in the country.

However, amassing a massive follower base on social media comes with its challenges, Gadkari candidly noted. For instance, there is a tendency among people to tag him on social media for every pothole in the country, even if it is on a state highway or city road. "I’m only responsible for the national highways,” he quipped.

YouTube’s monetisation feature has unleashed a whole new ilk of content creators, both from India’s metropolitan cities to its hinterlands. At the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES), YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced that the Google-owned streaming platform has paid over ₹21,000 crore to Indian content creators, artists, and media companies in the past three years, epitomising the support that the platform has lent to nurturing local talent.

"YouTube's ability to connect a creator anywhere with audiences everywhere has made it a powerful engine of cultural export, and few nations have leveraged this as effectively as India," he said.

Mohan also announced at WAVES 2025 that YouTube is investing ₹850 crore over the next two years to power what he calls India’s “Creator Nation”, accelerating the growth of Indian creators, artists, and media. "Today, India isn't just a world leader for film and music—it's rapidly becoming what I'm excited to call a “Creator Nation.”

According to Mohan, over 100 million channels have uploaded content in the past year, and more than 15,000 of those channels have over a million subscribers. “Last year, content produced in India racked up 45 billion hours of watch time from viewers outside the country,” he said.