Minister Gadkari warns of penalties for poor highway quality as AI monitoring expands

NEW DELHI: The Centre will use Network Surveillance Vehicles (NSVs) to identify potholes across national highways and hold contractors, consultants and officials accountable for poor road quality, road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari said on Tuesday, warning that those found compromising on quality would face penalties and blacklisting.

Speaking at the CII National Conference on Highways of India’s Future: Smart, Safe and Sustainable in New Delhi, Gadkari said the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) had stepped up quality monitoring, helping reduce reported construction-quality problems by 30%.

“Last few months, I have been personally monitoring this, and I have reviewed hundreds of projects. Social media posts have also been helpful in flagging quality issues at stretches, and I urge the public to put these problems on social media. We have seen already seen a drop of 30% in such problems since we started monitoring these closely and am reasonably sure we will see the rest resolving over the next two years,” the minister said.

NSVs are vehicle-mounted, multi-sensor platforms that assess road conditions and pavement quality at traffic speeds of 40–80 kmph. The ministry has mandated their use, with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) deploying them to monitor road quality, plan repairs and feed data into AI-based systems such as the RAMS Data Lake.

Gadkari said the ministry had already blacklisted several companies manufacturing bearings and expansion joints over quality concerns, adding that it was adopting a zero-tolerance approach to lapses.

AI moves to road safety

The government is also expanding technology-led road safety measures. Gadkari said AI-based Advanced Traffic Management Systems would be deployed in the first phase across about 1,000 km of highways, with real-time tracking 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-chair of the CII National Taskforce on Road Safety and president of the India ITS Forum, said, “India is best in adopting technology. The next milestone is how many lives we can save on the road.”

Infrastructure and logistics costs

Gadkari said he was in talks with the Bihar's chief minister to sign a memorandum of understanding under which NHAI would dredge rivers free of cost and use the accumulated silt in highway construction. The initiative, he said, would significantly reduce Bihar’s flood risk.

India’s ambition to become a $5 trillion economy depends on robust infrastructure across water, power, transport and communications, Gadkari said, pointing to its role in industrial growth, trade and investment.

He said India’s logistics costs had fallen from 16% of gross domestic product two years ago to 9%, attributing the decline to improved roads. “Today, I am really happy that, as compared with the logistics cost, 8% of the GDP in China, 12% logistics cost of European countries and the US, now from 16%, Indian logistics cost is coming to single digits, that is 9%. I am confident that because of the good roads, our logistics cost is now in the single digits.”

Gadkari described infrastructure as the backbone of the economy, saying every ₹100 spent on infrastructure generates an economic impact of ₹325. “I always feel that infrastructure development is the backbone of the Indian economy. Even globally, it is the real backbone of several countries. If we spend ₹100 for infrastructure, the impact on the economy is ₹325, where GDP is going to increase because of that. So it is very important to develop good roads, and we are giving the highest priority to that.”

Speaking at the conference, MV Satish, chair of the CII National Committee on Roads and Highways, said India’s road network needed to deliver not just faster connectivity but also greater durability, resource efficiency, environmental sustainability, safety and technological readiness.

John Prasad Kandamparambil, country head (institutional business) at IOC, said infrastructure investment was a fundamental driver of long-term business and bitumen demand.

“So what we can understand is that infrastructure investment is the fundamental driver of long-term bitumen demand. However, road construction is far more than bitumen alone. It's a complete material ecosystem. Every kilometer of road represents the convergence of aggregates, fuels, bitumen, and advanced materials working together to create the national infrastructure.”