Now, various education institutes will study stretches of National Highways and suggest improvements to the National Highway Authority of India. The IITs, NITs as well as other reputed technology institutions in India will now adopt National Highway stretches on a voluntary basis and the faculties, students and researchers of these institutions will use them as a field of study of the latest industry trends, said officials of the Education Ministry. Improvement prospects in safety, maintenance, riding comfort, removal of congestion points and usage of new technologies on the adopted stretches will be studied by the partner institutes, following which they will give suitable suggestions to the NHAI for consideration, according to a PTI report.
A senior ministry official was quoted in the report saying that during conceptualization, design and preparation of new projects, the institutes will associate with the NHAI. Also, the institutes will recommend relevant parameters along with innovations based on experience specific to the site climate, topography as well as resource potential for better socio-economic outcome. The National Highway Authority of India will offer internships to 20 undergraduate students and 20 postgraduate students of the institutes per year. The internship duration shall be two months per student. The internship for undergraduate students will be at a remuneration of Rs 8,000, while that of postgraduate students will be at Rs 15,000 per month.
According to the official, among the student fraternity, this initiative will instil a sense of contribution in building local infrastructure as well. The creation of lab infrastructure in the institute will be supported by NHAI. Besides, NHAI may also sponsor research project that helps in using alternative resource material along with improving roads quality, the official added. So far, the scheme has been opted by as many as 18 IITs, 26 NITs and 190 other engineering colleges. For the adopted stretches, appropriate MOUs are being signed between the NHAI and technology institutes and so far, nearly 200 institutes have signed the MOU already for implementation of the scheme. Over 300 institutes offering civil engineering undergraduate and postgraduate courses are expected to adopt the highway stretches all over the country, the official added.
