For effective review of design and construction of bridges, specialised structures and tunnels, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has set up a Design Division.
This division will formulate policy and guidelines for planning, designing, construction and maintenance of bridges, structures, tunnels on national highways across the country.
The division will review the project preparation, construction of new bridges, condition surveys and rehabilitation of existing old/distressed bridges, instrumentation to check the health of critical bridges, structures, tunnels and reinforced-earth (RE) walls.
It will also review stand-alone bridges and specialised structures, which are at a detailed project report (DPR) stage, where DPRs started post June 2023.
In addition, the Division will also undertake review of construction methodologies, temporary structures, lifting and launching methods and pre-stressing methods of selected bridges and structures with span of more than 200 metre and special structures on random basis.
Apart from this, review of designs of all bridges/structures which are more than 200 metre in ongoing projects, shall be undertaken.
Also, designs of other bridges of span more than 60 metre, structures and tunnels of more than 200 metre length, RE walls above 10 metre height and other specialised structures will be reviewed on random basis.
For undertaking design reviews, the Division will hire advisers, consultants, teams comprising of bridge design experts, tunnel experts, RE wall experts, geotech experts, soil/material testing labs etc.
The Division will also involve design experts, research scholars, and post graduates from IITs/NITs for undertaking design reviews of structures, as required.
In addition, the division will organise certification courses for officers of Minsitry of Road Transport and Highways, NHAI, NHIDCL and personnel of contractors/consultants on various aspects of design, construction, supervision and maintenance of bridges, tunnels and RE walls.
The courses will be organised through Indian Academy of Highway Engineers, Noida and Indian Railways Institute of Civil Engineering, Pune.
An IT-based monitoring system will be developed by the Design Division for bridge inventory, drawings, identification of distressed bridges and will also propose an annual plan for their repair and construction.
It will also nominate a team of experts in case of failure of bridges and other structures for detailed analysis and issue guidelines to prevent such failures in future.
With large number of national highway infrastructure development being under implementation across the country, the Design Division will help to build in-house capacity for designing, proof-checking and construction of bridges and other critical structures.