NHAI short-staffed, to up headcount by 300

With several new road construction projects in the pipeline, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is short-staffed and needs to up its headcount by 300 to expedite awarding of contracts.

“With many projects up for grabs and several others on the verge of completion, we need at least 300 people because the present strength of 500 is not enough,” said a senior NHAI official, requesting anonymity.

The official also said that NHAI was not to be blamed for the staff deficit because the entire process is cumbersome and usually takes a long time. “Most people we show our interest in are either not relieved by their parent cadre or they themselves do not want to leave their home state. This leads to delays. However, we plan to fill all the vacancies by the end of this year,” said another senior NHAI official.

Around 50 per cent employees working with NHAI are Public Welfare Departments (PWDs) staff from other states who are on deputation with the highways authority.

The official said NHAI has to strike the right balance when they start recruiting because they would require people both for construction and maintenance of roads. “If we need 100 people to oversea road construction, we have also got to have at least 35 people to maintain the highway once construction was over,” he said.

When Kamal Nath had taken up responsibility as the road transport minister, he wanted a permanent workforce at NHAI because he felt the agency was more like a “departure lounge where everyone was ready to leave”.

Nath had initiated a process to decentralise the functioning of the agency and open regional offices in state capitals. However, the incumbent minister for road transport and highway CP Joshi has not decided on continuing the process that Nath had started.

NHAI had proceeded well with its decentralisation process by starting six zonal offices headed by an executive director and had opened 150 special land acquisition offices across states. However, before Nath could lay out the plans for creating a cadre base for NHAI, he had move out of the ministry.

Road development and award of projects have seen a spurt in activity in recent times with NHAI awarding over 5,000 km of road projects and building roads at 13 km per day — an increase from 4 km a day a year back.