The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has mandated minimum remuneration for key professionals involved in National Highways contracts and while directing consultancy firms to keep at least 20% of the sub-professional engineering staff from the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) or its associated divisions.

The move is aimed at improving project delivery, enhancing quality standards and greater operational efficiency across the National Highway framework.

“The revised provisions will also strengthen technical capabilities of consultancy firms engaged in National Highway development by ensuring greater participation of professionals with hands-on experience in execution and supervision of National Highway projects,” the road ministry said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

As per the amended standard request for proposal (RFP) documents for deployment of authority engineer (AE) and independent engineer (IE) consultancy services, minimum monthly remuneration of Rs 5.00 lakh has been fixed for team leader and bridge or structural engineer, Rs 2.50 lakh for road safety expert and Rs 3.50 lakh for resident cum highway engineer, program schedule reviewer, senior quality cum material expert and senior pavement specialist.

In addition to this, minimum monthly remuneration of Rs 1.50 lakh has been fixed for sub-professional (civil engineer) and Rs 1.00 lakh for young professionals (civil engineer) has been fixed.

Further to create structured career progression opportunities for experienced site engineers, NHAI has revised the policy governing their engagement as the earlier policy limited their tenure to a maximum of five years.

Under the revised framework, a minimum of 20% of the sub-professional engineering staff deployed by authority engineer and independent engineer consultancy firms shall comprise previously engaged site engineers or young professionals from NHAI, MoRTH or NHIDCL (National Highways & Infrastructure Development).

“The framework seeks to leverage the experience gained by these professionals in National Highway planning, construction supervision and project management, while simultaneously providing them with meaningful employment opportunities within the highway infrastructure sector,” it added.