Minister Gadkari warns of penalties for poor highway quality as AI monitoring expands | Today’s news
NEW DELHI: The Center will use Network Surveillance Vehicles (NSV) to identify potholes on national highways and hold contractors, consultants and officials accountable for poor road quality, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari warned on Tuesday that those found compromising on quality will face sanctions and blacklisting.
Addressing the CII National Conference on India’s Future: Smart, Safe and Sustainable in New Delhi, Gadkari said the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has stepped up quality monitoring and helped reduce reported construction quality issues by 30%.
“Over the last few months, I have personally observed and reviewed hundreds of projects. Social media posts have also been helpful in flagging quality issues and I encourage the public to put these issues on social media. We have already seen a 30% drop in such issues since we started monitoring them closely, and I am fairly confident that the rest will be resolved within the next two years,” the minister said.
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NSVs are vehicle-mounted multi-sensor platforms that assess road condition and road quality at traffic speeds of 40–80 km/h. The ministry has mandated their use and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has deployed them to monitor road quality, schedule repairs and feed data into AI-based systems such as the RAMS Data Lake.
Gadkari said the ministry has already blacklisted several companies manufacturing bearings and compensators due to quality issues, adding that it is implementing a zero-tolerance approach to outages.
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AI is moving towards road safety
The government is also expanding technology-based road safety measures. Gadkari said advanced AI-based traffic management systems will be deployed on about 1,000 km of highways in the first phase with real-time monitoring of every movement.
He stressed the importance of lane discipline in reducing road accidents and reiterated the need to adopt alternative and biofuels.
Akhilesh Srivastava, co-chairman of the CII National Taskforce on Road Safety and president of the India ITS Forum said, “India is the best at adopting technology. The next milestone is how many lives we can save on the road.”
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Infrastructure and logistics costs
Gadkari said he is in talks with the Bihar Chief Minister to sign an MoU under which the NHAI will dredge the rivers free of cost and use the accumulated silt for construction of highways. According to him, the initiative would significantly reduce the risk of floods in Bihar.
India’s ambition to become a $5 trillion economy depends on robust infrastructure in water, power, transport and communications, Gadkari said, pointing to its role in industrial growth, trade and investment.
He said India’s logistics costs have fallen from 16% of gross domestic product two years ago to 9%, due to improved roads. “Today, I am really happy that compared to the logistics cost, 8% of China’s GDP, 12% logistics cost of European countries and the US, now from 16%, India’s logistics cost is in the single digits, that is 9%. I believe that because of the good roads, our logistics cost is now in the single digits.”
Gadkari described infrastructure as the backbone of the economy, each said ₹100 spent on infrastructure has an economic impact ₹325. “I always feel that infrastructure development is the backbone of the Indian economy. Even globally, it is the real backbone of several countries. ₹100 on infrastructure, the impact on the economy is ₹325 where GDP will increase because of it. So it is very important to develop good roads and we give it top priority.”
Speaking at the conference, MV Satish, Chairman, CII National Committee on Roads and Highways, said that India’s road network needs to ensure not only faster connectivity but also greater resilience, resource efficiency, environmental sustainability, safety and technological readiness.
John Prasad Kandamparambil, country head (institutional business) at the IOC, said infrastructure investment is a fundamental driver of long-term business and demand for bitumen.
“So what we can understand is that infrastructure investment is a fundamental driver of long-term demand for bitumen. However, road construction is much more than just bitumen. It is a complete material ecosystem. Every kilometer of road represents a convergence of aggregates, fuels, bitumen and advanced materials that work together to create the nation’s infrastructure.”
