NHAI creates 6 zonal offices

To expedite road projects in the country and meet the target of constructing 20 km of roads a day, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has decided to undergo some functional changes. While it is expected to get a new chairman soon, it has already created zonal offices across the country.

NHAI now has six zonal offices, each headed by an executive director (ED). An office in Mumbai will look after Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat. Bangalore will control the four southern states — Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala — while Guwahati will monitor the north-eastern states.

The Lucknow office’s jurisdiction will span Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Haryana, while Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh will be taken care by the one in Bhopal. Kolkata will have West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand under its jurisdiction.

The EDs are authorised to negotiate with state governments and authorities concerned to expedite and resolve the land acquisition issues at the local level.

These officials will also have the authority to liaison with the state and environment ministry authorities and expedite the process of getting clearances quickly. They will also negotiate with railways and state authorities in getting clearances for railway and road overbridges.

Earlier, all these were monitored by the authority’s headquarters in New Delhi.

“These offices will help us expedite the land acquisition process and getting various clearances from various departments in expediting road building,” said a senior NHAI official, who did not want to be identified.

This is the second time the authority is decentralising its operations further. In its earlier move, NHAI opened regional offices, headed by chief general managers, in Lucknow, Patna, Jammu, Chennai, Guwahati, Delhi, Nagpur, Bangalore and Kolkata. All these offices will now report to the zonal offices.

In September, when a new chairman takes over, NHAI will be ready for some more organisational changes. The incumbent, Brajeshwar Singh, retires in August-end. Interviews for the top post have already been conducted.

To expedite land acquisition NHAI had opened 150 special land acquisition offices in various states, headed by an Additional District Magistrate (ADM) or Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), to liaise with NHAI through project directors (NHAI appointed them to look after the development of the project).

Ten of these units are in Rajasthan, 13 in Bihar, 25 in Uttar Pradesh, 7 in Gujarat, 11 in Orissa, 13 in West Bengal, 4 in Jharkhand, 11 in Maharashtra and 5 in Assam and around 40 are in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and Goa.