Major reforms in NHAI underway vis-à-vis decentralisation of work & division of power: Nitin Gadkari

MANGALURU: Major reforms in National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) are being undertaken in terms of decentralisation of work and division of power, union minister of road transport and highways (MoRTH) Nitin Gadkari in a ASSOCHAM webinar on Tuesday.
“Reforms in NHAI are long overdue,” said Gadkari addressing the road infrastructure industry in a webinar on ‘Impact and Investment Opportunities in Roads & Highways,’ hosted by ASSOCHAM.
He added, “I am of the opinion that we should issue an order whereby without the Ministry’s permission, NHAI should not constitute any committee. They have become so dependent that every person tries to avert decision making at his end. There is also negativity and those who have a positive mind-set are afraid to take decisions and forward it to committees that consume a lot of time.”
While in terms of ease of doing business the PM has taken many decisions and India’s ranking has also improved in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business Rankings, still certain steps need to be taken and bring in transparency to improve the working in the system, he said. “To further improve, we will sit together and work on reforms for NHAI,” Gadkari added.
“For ease of doing business we need – positivity, transparency, corruption free system and performance audit should be conducted and decision making should be fast-tracked,” he said, adding MoRTH will fix the responsibility in case when the court gives a decision against the Ministry and on the basis of that it should be seen who is accountable for such a decision.