- Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Chairman, National Highways of Authority (NHAI)India has the second largest network of roads in the world and the National Highways play a very important role in this. They form only 2 per cent of the total highway network but carry 40 per cent of the traffic. We are supposed to spend about Rs.13 trillion in the NHAI as part of the National Infrastructure Pipeline. A major chunk would be spent under Bharatmala. For the first time in India, a corridor approach has been adopted. Earlier, we would usually widen existing roads because traffic has gone beyond capacity. But now, a nationwide study has been undertaken to know the origin and destination of the traffic and we have already identified over 23 corridors where projects are in different stages. For instance, the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway will reduce travel time from 24 hours to almost 12 hours. Another one will start between Bengaluru and Chennai. Then, Delhi to Dehradun is in the pipeline. Similarly, almost every part of the country will have access-controlled economic corridors or expressways connecting points of economic activity. This year, in the first six months, NHAI has awarded road projects worth Rs.470 billion. The target for this financial year is to award works worth Rs.2 trillion. The target for next year is similar. To meet the financial requirement, we have lined up innovative initiatives. The SPV model is being made operational. The first is the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, where we are arranging finances by securitising future toll revenue. The first government-sector Invit is coming up in NHAI. We have been doing ToT, which will continue. Our toll policy will help meet financial requirements and ensure comfortable repayment of all warrants. Because it’s a robust policy, many foreign investors are showing interest in the roads sector. Another initiative, Fastag, has made commuting on National Highways much easier. Improvements are still taking place. Our endeavour is to make your experience through a toll plaza comparable to the best in the world. To manage the data lake generated, we have set up a Centre of Excellence for artificial intelligence with We have also asked the IITs, NITs and other engineering colleges to adopt National Highways in their proximity. We call it institutional social responsibility. Students, research scholars and teachers are adopting a particular stretch of the National Highway and are giving suggestions on its maintenance as stakeholders. We are also using their services while preparing the DPR. Further, we are laying a lot of emphasis on quality. Rating of all roads under NHAI is now in the final phase. We are also ranking and rating the performance of all our offices and employees. For ease of doing business, we have had extensive discussions with consultants and contractors and implemented whatever suggestions we could. For example, in NHAI, we only had a manual system of payments. During lockdown, we changed the system to online; we paid over `100 billion and cleared all pending bills. This helped many stakeholders improve their liquidity. Dispute resolution has been a major challenge and NHAI has invited everyone to come for conciliation. We have three committees disposing of many cases. Payment is fast because you don’t have to wait for a court order. Moreover, in all future agreements, we have introduced a dispute resolution board mechanism where, even when the project is ongoing, the issue can be raised and a panel will give its decision. I’m hopeful that over 90 per cent of issues will be resolved at this stage only. Also, we are ensuring we don’t award any project unless we have 90 per cent of the land with us. So, I’m hopeful these litigations will become part of history. Finally, I again congratulate the organisers of the India Construction Festival and all the winners. I’m also sure the people who could not make it this year will definitely be able to win next year.