Effecting changes in the structure of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the Cabinet on Friday cleared the proposal to set up a search committee to be headed by the Cabinet Secretary for selecting the chairman for NHAI.
Other members of the committee will include Secretary, department of road transport and highways (DORT&H), Secretary, Planning Commission, a CMD or MD of a financial institution and one of the directors of IIMs to be nominated by the Cabinet Secretary.
The tenure of the Chairman will be for at least three years which can be extended up to five years. Age of the Chairman will be relaxed up to 62 years, if required, for three-year tenure.
NHAI will have six full time members in place of the present number of five ? one each for finance, administration, public private partnership (PPP), two members for projects and one member for technical.
The number of part-time members also will go up from 4 to 6. These members would be from the non-Government sector, one from IITs / IIMs and the other from financial institutions.
Twenty-six posts of chief general managers (CGMs) would be created over and above the existing 13 posts of CGMs. Fifteen of these CGMs would look after project implementation and corridor management. The remaining 11 CGMs would be in charge of finance, administration and HR, IT, legal, safety, Financial Analyst and contract management specialist.
The Authority has been empowered to engage, where required, outside experts with relaxation of age if needed specifically in the posts of financial analyst, transport economist, contract management specialist and legal expert. This decision will equip the Authority to manage the enhanced mandate and to handle the PPP projects effectively in future.