The National Highways Department (NHAI) under the Central Government is involved in the construction of highways across the country. Due to increasing number of vehicles and resulting traffic congestion, they are giving importance to road widening works.
Highways Department Activities
Proper maintenance and management of national highways is expected to increase to 89,900 kilometers by 2037 and 1.27 lakh kilometers by 2047. It was in this context that they decided to create a Route Management Unit called CMU to give special importance to National Highways.
Special Management Units
In the next 10, 15 years, the current highway development projects will become useless. Changes will then be required. It is necessary for the highway department officials and employees to be prepared accordingly. Channel Management Units (CMUs) are said to be very helpful for this.
Road widening works
Only recently NHAI has completed about 90 percent of road construction and widening works as planned. However, simply building roads is not enough. They should be maintained continuously. For this, 10 different activities are going to be carried out by the route management units known as CMU. They are,
- Ensuring smooth flow of traffic on highways
- Carrying out encroachment removal works in a proper manner
- Inspection of roads at regular intervals
- Ensuring basic amenities for the public along the road
- Planting and maintaining a large number of saplings on behalf of the Highways Department
- Placement of notice boards, digital boards on specific parts of the road
- Monitoring of traffic volume at toll plazas
- How stable is the road quality?
- Investigating the root cause of road accidents
- Dealing with appropriate precautionary measures in times of calamity
The Route Management Units (CMU) set up by the National Highways Authority will carry out these 10 issues as a priority. These are expected to maintain the quality of roads across the country for many years and provide uninterrupted service to the public.
