A 251-km stretch of National Highway 44 connecting Hyderabad and Nagpur is being used to pilot an integrated highway emergency-response system aimed at reducing delays in post-crash rescue and trauma care.
The initiative comes amid growing concerns over highway fatalities and delays in emergency medical response, particularly during the “golden hour” immediately after serious road accidents.
Project Sanjeevani and the NH-44 pilot
The pilot is part of Project Sanjeevani, an initiative being implemented on the NH-44 corridor in Telangana by SaveLIFE Foundation in collaboration with the Government of Telangana and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), with support from Vertis Foundation.
The project follows NHAI’s award of Toll-Operate-Transfer (TOT) Bundle-16 for Rs 6,661 crore to Vertis Infrastructure Trust — formerly Highway Infrastructure Trust — for the Hyderabad-Nagpur stretch in 2024.
A coordinated emergency-response ecosystem
In an interaction with FinancialExpress.com, Dr. Zafar Khan, Joint Chief Executive Officer of Vertis Infrastructure Trust, said the initiative is being designed as a coordinated emergency-response ecosystem involving ambulance services, police, hospitals, highway patrol units and emergency helplines.
“The corridor is being developed as a connected emergency-response model where multiple agencies are able to work through a common protocol and respond faster during the critical minutes after a crash,” Dr. Khan said.
Unlike conventional highway upgrades focused primarily on road expansion or congestion management, the project seeks to integrate emergency healthcare systems, dispatch coordination and traffic-management technologies along the corridor.
How the proposed system will work
Under the proposed framework, emergency services including 112, 108 and 1033 helplines, police response teams, hospitals, fire services and highway patrol units would operate through a common workflow supported by Advanced Traffic Management System feeds and digital coordination platforms.
Officials associated with the project said the system is expected to support incident reporting, triage, dispatch coordination, hospital matching, pre-arrival alerts and real-time response tracking. A WiFi-enabled highway component is also being explored, although officials said it is not central to the current implementation phase.
Focus on the ‘golden hour’
The initiative is built around the “golden hour” principle, which refers to the critical period immediately after a serious crash when timely medical intervention can significantly improve survival outcomes.
According to project officials, one of the key challenges in highway emergency care is not only ambulance availability, but coordination across the entire response chain, including bystander assistance, pre-hospital care, transport and hospital preparedness.
Project Sanjeevani aims to address this through trauma-centre mapping, hospital tiering, multi-agency response protocols and planned upgradation of trauma-care facilities along the corridor.
Under the proposed response structure, incidents would be classified based on severity, with corresponding responses triggered for ambulance teams, police, fire and rescue units, highway patrol personnel and hospitals.
Hospitals connected to the network would also receive pre-arrival alerts to help emergency departments prepare before patients reach the facility.
Dr. Khan said the objective is to reduce delays between accident reporting, dispatch activation, responder arrival, safe extraction and transfer to definitive medical care.
Phase-wise implementation on NH-44
Vertis Foundation has committed Rs 6 crore for the phased implementation of the initiative on the NH-44 corridor.
According to officials, Phase I has been completed and included baseline assessments, trauma-care audits, stakeholder consultations, multi-agency coordination and trauma-centre mapping.
The project is now moving into Phase II, which will focus on technology deployment, workflow applications, training programmes, capacity building and trauma-care centre upgrades along the corridor.
Project Sanjeevani was formally launched in Hyderabad during Telangana’s Arrive Alive Road Safety Week under the state government’s 99-Day Action Plan.
The launch involved officials from Telangana’s police, health, transport, fire and disaster management departments, along with NHAI representatives and district administrators from the NH-44 corridor.
Dr. Khan said the NH-44 pilot could eventually be replicated across other highway corridors depending on outcomes and institutional support.
Project Sanjeevani is also aligned with the broader Zero-Fatality Solutions programme being scaled by SaveLIFE Foundation across high-risk corridors and districts.
The pilot could mark a shift in how highway emergency response is managed from separate systems working in parallel to an integrated model that brings together communication, rescue, trauma care and institutional coordination.
If successfully implemented, the NH-44 pilot could become a template for building safer, faster and more coordinated emergency-response systems across India’s national highway network.