How NHAI is Building a Smart India for the Future

The beginning of 2018 has been monumental for India as the Central government, along with the India Inc., flagged off its largest campaign yet to modernise the nation’s public sector. The mammoth enterprise – lead by a powerful coalition of public and private establishments – involves, among other measures, the integration of advanced technology and revised policies in the sector.

Roads & Highways is one such sector that is undergoing the rapid transformation in infrastructure and administration due to the public-private synergy. And the National Highways Authority of India an autonomous highways wing of the Government of India, has been instrumental in this transformation.

The NHAI is at the helm of various cluster projects initiated by the Union government to develop highway infrastructure, some of which include Wayside Amenities, Electronic Toll Collection, GPS Tolling, Advanced Traffic Management System, Roads & Assets Management System, drones for highways, and Sukhad Yatra mobile application.

The WSA includes the Highway Village, Highway Nest, and Highway Nest (Mini). The Nest and Nest (Mini) are already operational at several locations in the country while the Village is in its tendering phase. The village is being built under Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

The Nest and Village will act as highway ports for motorists and provide them with basic to advanced comforts, including clean restrooms, emergency clinics, ATMs, fuel stations, vehicle garages, hotels and branded restaurants, and purified drinking water. The Village may include even conference rooms and helipads.

The Electronic Toll Collection system allows users to pay toll fee digitally, easing traffic flow and reducing the time taken at Toll plazas. ETC uses sensors and computers to instantly bill and deduct fee from vehicles that have RFID-encoded FASTag stickers affixed to them. The system is already operational at several Toll booths in India.

Besides this, the NHAI is currently running the pilot phase of an advanced iteration of the ETC – GPS tolling or Pay As You Use – in the Delhi-Mumbai corridor. The system uses satellite-enabled technology such as GPS or GSM to track vehicle movement on highways and automatically debit the toll fee. The initiative is set to end the need for Toll infrastructure. The new mechanism will bill the user only for the distance they travel, as opposed to the previous ones that invoice them based on vehicle type.

Besides these, the Central organisation also is undertaking other ambitious constellation projects such as Bharatmala Pariyojna and the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway (IMTTH). Bharatmala, which will subsume other infrastructure projects currently on hiatus, will, in the future, constitute 80,000 km of roads across India and create more than 44 economic corridors. The project is being undertaken to transform remote rural areas into financial wellsprings.

Besides upgrading its domestic roads, transport, and logistics, India also is marking its economic footprint in South Asia with the 1,360-km IMTTH project. The intra-continental project, which is being built under India’s Look-East policy, will spark trade and tourism between India, ASEAN member-countries, and the rest of South Asia.

The intra-continental highway starts from Manipur’s Moreh (India), traverses through Myanmar, and ends at Mae Sot (Thailand). The project proposes the construction of 69 bridges on the Tamu-Kyigone-Kalewa road section (nearly 150 km) and Kalewa-Yargi road section (over 120 km) in Myanmar to improve road connectivity with South-East Asia.

As part of this proposal, India has already finished the construction of a 130-km road connecting Moreh and Tamu in India to Kalewa in Myanmar. Several stretches on the Thailand-Myanmar side of the project are already completed. The construction or upgrading of the rest of the project awaits the finalisation of tenders and contracts, for which consultants have been already appointed.

Under the proposal, NHAI also is taking up the construction of three new major bridges, the repair and reinforcement of four major bridges, the building of two new minor bridges, the rebuilding of six minor bridges, the repair and strengthening of nine minor bridges, and the construction of 20 advanced bus bays, passenger shelters, and a modern amenity centre among others.

The India-ASEAN road connectivity project may extend to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam in the near future. The new intra-continental economic corridor will generate annually an estimated USD 70 billion in incremental GDP output and 20 million in incremental aggregate employment by 2025 for the nations involved.

With these projects and more, the NHAI is becoming kernel to India’s emergence as a global economic force and building a nation that belongs to the future.

#SukhadYatra #BharatmalaPariyojna #RoadprojectsinIndia

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