NEW DELHI, June 16: Faced with several complaints of poor quality of road construction, the Road Ministry has decided to engage independent experts to keep a vigil on various parameters such as standard and timely execution of projects.
“Ministry has received complaints about poor quality of construction of roads from various quarters… Accordingly it is decided to engage independent experts (National Project Monitor),” the ministry said in a communication to all its regional offices.
It said at present the mechanism available to check these issues with the regional offices is not adequate and these independent experts would assist them in project preparation, quality check during implementation, check on services rendered by developers and on measures for timely completion of projects.
Experts would also advise on maintaining safety standards of roads as it has been “receiving complaints from users about poor quality of services provided by the concessionaires on stretches developed through private sector participation”.
The ministry said it was concerned that National Highways had a major share in fatalities in road accidents.
As per data, more than one lakh people in the country fall victim to road accident deaths every year while another 4.5 lakh persons get injured in these annually.
Road Transport and Highways Minister C P Joshi had recently said that the number of fatalities in the last two decades has seen a huge rise due to exponential growth of vehicles on roads and the socio-economic cost of road accidents has been estimated at 3 per cent of the GDP.
A Transport Ministry official said that the experts would be empanelled by a committee, under the Chairmanship of the Secretary, Road Transport and Highways.
India has a road network of 33 lakh km, which is the second largest in the world and comprises about 80,000 km of National Highways and about 1,32,000 km of state highways. (PTI)
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