Akhilesh Srivastava - The Key Speaker in 4th Annual Roads and Highways Conference

The International Road Federation, which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, organised by 4th Annual Roads and Highways conference in Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, Singapore. This event, which was held from 09th -11th April, 2018, was jointly organised by the Marcus Evans. With a tagline "Transforming roads of the future by redefining strategic road networks", the conference hosted many discussions and presentations from various personalities including Mr Akhilesh Srivastava, who is CGM of IT and Highway operations division in the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).

Mr Akhilesh Srivastava, who has been instrumental in executing the note-worthy projects like FASTag of Government of India, discussed the challenges faced by him and his department while implementing different projects. The experts and individuals participated in this conference have vented their opinions, experiences, and suggestions.

The conference assumed greater importance as the roadways across the world has been choked by the increased vehicular density. Many reasons have been attributed to this situation. One of them is the rise in the private vehicles. The per-capita income of individuals has been on the rise year on year. The increase in the purchasing power- powered by the per-capita income- of individuals- has led to more influx of private vehicles on roads, which isn’t sustainable. So, to go against such odds, the policies that are governing the vehicular traffic need to be changed according to the existing conditions. And, also the time is ripe to redefine the road infrastructure and make it meet the demands of the society.

Many speakers spoke on different technologies that could shape the fortunes of the roadways in a strategic way. They stressed the need for the government to beef up investments in the public infrastructure. On the third day of the conference, Mr Alberto Germani, who is one of the project management experts, conducted a workshop on Project Finance and Public Private Partnerships (PPP). And on the same day, Mr Srivastava, who addressed challenges pertaining to national highway traffic, has shared the example of the FASTag project. The project, which started with an aim to reduce congestion at Toll plazas, has been successful in India.

Mr Akhilesh Srivastava, who represented India, has delivered a keynote on the impact of China’s One Belt One Road Project (OBOR) on the Asian highways. He also spoke about the Wayside amenities project, which started to revamp the infrastructure alongside national highways in India. He also cited that the project is one of the largest Public Private Partnership projects undertaken by the NHAI. Experts representing different countries also shared their success stories, which could be emulated by other countries for solving their problems pertaining to the road infrastructure.

The conference also witnessed many presentations on the topics like smart mobility, funding models, design and development, engineering, Traffic management and road safety. Many attendees felt satisfied with the conference and expressed their happiness on the way the conference went on. The organisers hoped that the sessions on aspects pertaining to the traffic management would be useful for countries, which are facing vehicular traffic problems.

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Harish Bandla is recently graduated from Savitribai Phule Pune University with a degree in marketing and Finance, his interests also include book reading, article writing. You can find him on LinkedIn and G+ as Harish32.