Government taking steps to revamp NHAI: Nitin Gadkari
ROADS & HIGHWAYS

Government taking steps to revamp NHAI: Nitin Gadkari

Major reforms in the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) are being undertaken in terms of decentralisation of work and division of power, informed Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) Nitin Gadkari in a webinar hosted by ASSOCHAM recently.“Re...

Major reforms in the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) are being undertaken in terms of decentralisation of work and division of power, informed Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) Nitin Gadkari in a webinar hosted by ASSOCHAM recently.“Reforms in NHAI are long overdue,” said Gadkari, addressing the road infrastructure industry in the webinar, titled ‘Impact and Investment Opportunities in Roads & Highways’. “I am of the opinion that we should issue an order whereby NHAI should not constitute any committee without the ministry’s permission. They have become so dependent that every person tries to avert decision-making at their end. There is also negativity; those who have a positive mindset are afraid to take decisions and forward it to committees. This consumes a lot of time.”Gadkari said that while the Prime Minister has taken many decisions in terms of ease of doing business and India’s ranking has also improved in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings, certain steps still need to be taken and transparency brought in to improve working in the system. “To further improve, we will sit together and work on reforms for NHAI,” he said, as per an ASSOCHAM release. “For ease of doing business, we need positivity, transparency and a corruption-free system. A performance audit should be conducted and decision-making should be fast-tracked.”Further, he said MoRTH will fix the responsibility in case the Court gives a decision against the ministry; on the basis of this, accountability will be fixed. The minister also shared that a project management consultancy scheme is likely to be finalised that will prove fruitful in terms of technology and other related aspects of road infrastructure. He suggested to the industry that cost of construction can be reduced by using different types of materials, such as bitumen. “Industry may come to me with new technology and I will consider their request,” he assured, according to the release by ASSOCHAM. He added that low-hanging fruit like reducing construction costs, revamp of NHAI and digital transfer of money by incorporating the latest IT would give relief to the industry.

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