A consensus has emerged between the road transport ministry and the Planning Commission on the appropriate restructuring model for the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).Under the new model, several new cells would be created to enable better monitoring of projects. A new post (Member, Public Private Partnerships Projects) would also be created along with the already existing posts for that of administration, technical and finance.At a meeting between the Planning Commission, the Road Transport Ministry, Finance Ministry and the NHAI, called by the cabinet secretary BK Chaturvedi last week, it was decided that the post of chairman of NHAI would be cleared by a panel chaired by the cabinet secretary himself which would, among others, also have representatives from financial institutions.While splitting NHAI into regional heads has been ruled out for the moment, sources said that the restructured NHAI would have one cell for legal affairs, which is presently being outsourced and one new contract management cell.It would also have one cell for project appraisal, which would also conduct financial analysis of projects; there would be another cell for planning and quality testing of roads and a new cell that would undertake research and development for road construction and for working on new technologies in this area.One of the points of contention between the road transport ministry and the Planning Commission was on apportioning of responsibilities at the project director level for delays as well as on payments to contractors working on projects.While both NHAI and the finance ministry disagreed here, the way that has emerged is that the unit will only make the required payments depending on the fraction of work completed (3%). Added to this, it was also decided that a special manual outlining the checks and balances for project implementation would be released for the project directors.However, the new model for NHAI, which would now be sent to the Committee on Infrastructure chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for clearance, does not touch upon the Finance Ministry’s suggestion to transfer land over which the highways are built onto NHAI’s balance sheet and create an asset base which can leveraged to raise funds for the organisation.
