Akhilesh Srivastava’s Achievements at a Glance
Akhilesh Srivastava, Chief General Manager (CGM) of IT & Highway Operations at the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), has been spearheading the Central government’s bid to modernise the country’s national highways. The bid involves domestic and global megaprojects that integrate advanced technology with the highways sector to help the country emerge as an economic front in the world. The successful completion of several of these projects and others has won CGM Akhilesh Srivastava national and international recognition.
The domestic projects include Electronic Toll Collection (ETC), Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS), drones and remote sensing for highways, Wayside Amenities (WSA), and more. The collective enterprise aims to bring transparency and modernity to highway operations, and induct India in the league of the countries having futuristic road infrastructure.
The most renowned projects among CGM Akhilesh Srivastava’s achievements, ETC – enabled with RFID-encoded FASTag stickers – allows motorists commuting on national highways to pay their Toll plaza fee electronically. Commuters can purchase FASTag stickers online and affix them to the windshield of their vehicles. The stickers have all the necessary information and are linked to the user’s bank account and other mobile wallet accounts.
Whenever a FASTag-enabled vehicle passes through an ETC lane, the system detects the vehicle using special tech and debits the toll tax amount. The initiative, which has already been made operational across hundreds of NH plazas, has decongested several tolling lanes. Srivastava aims to bring many more dedicated ETC lanes and introduce other payment methods.
The ATMS was recently introduced in India by Srivastava and the NHAI. It uses equipment and devices such as vehicle detectors, cameras, and sensors to monitor highways and provide mitigation in case of incidents such as accidents and grid locks. The ATMS, or Traffic Incident Management System (TIMS) as it is called in India, uses a network of modern technology to capture data on highways and relay them to regional command centres.
The ATMS also allows the use of a common toll-free 24x7 emergency line – 1033 – for highway commuters to report incidents. The system is semi-automated and deploys the necessary action, including ambulance and tow-away vehicles, within 15 minutes of command. Recently, a new network of surveillance IP cameras has been added to the ATMS.
CGM Akhilesh Srivastava also has initiated the use of industrial drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and remote sensing equipment such as LiDARs for the designing, construction, and monitoring of highway projects. Additionally, drones or UAVs will help ATMS carry out surveillance of national highways.
Another popular project being successfully helmed by the NHAI CGM is WSA. It is aimed at providing hygienic amenities and a safe halting point to commuters along national highways. The initiative further consists of three different models – Highway Nest, Highway Nest (Mini), and Highway Village. The Nest and Nest (Mini) have already been constructed at several toll complexes. The Village – largest of the three models – once constructed, will house high-end facilities including helipads.
More recently, Srivastava developed a first-of-its-kind Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) portal for the automated/semi-automated settlement of commercial legal disputes. The UN-approved techno-legal portal will allow the Indian legal system to focus on important cases by automating the redressal of commercial disputes.
The CGM recently was delegated to an international forum in Singapore to speak on the modernisation drive and the future of roads and India’s role in building it. These achievements and more have won Akhilesh Srivastava the Vishwakarma Award for lifetime achievement in early 2018.
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