The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has approached all IITs, NITs and reputed engineering colleges to collaborate and adopt nearby stretches of nation highways (NH), on voluntary basis, as part of Institutional Social Responsibility (ISR).
The objective is to leverage intellectual prudence of students and faculty towards improvement of road infrastructure ecosystem of the country.
The institutes along with their faculty and students have better appreciation of local requirement, topography, resource potential, etc and these vital inputs can be utilised by NHAI during different stages of pre-construction, construction and operation of NH stretches.
Thedecentralised approach also provides an opportunity to students for hands-on-learning, option for internship and future areas of research.
The adoption of stretch by the institutes opens avenue for access to important data, which can be used to improve quality and safety aspects of NH and enhance local capacity of the institutes in terms of advanced lab and simulation systems.
The adoption of NH stretch by an institute would facilitate stakeholder engagement and help to mitigate routine local problems such as traffic movement, congestion and immediate identification of accident-prone sites. The highway users become more empowered in resolving local problems through the institutes and the authority.
A large number of IITs, NITs and engineering colleges have opted to join the scheme and NHAI officers have started mutual consultation with Directors of the interested institutes. Also, memorandums of understanding (MoUs) are being signed between individual institutes and NHAI for institutionalisation of the scheme and bring reformative improvements in road infrastructure of the country.