Faced with a poor response to its recruitment drive, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has effected changes in the appointment rules to attract the best talent.
The NHAI wants to double its manpower strength to 800 by June to achieve the Road Transport and Highways Ministry's ambitious target of building 20 km of roads a day. It had advertised openings for 400 posts over two months ago, but only managed to fill 30 per cent of the vacancies.
In this regard, a Road Ministry official told PTI: "The NHAI has re-advertised for some posts while is in the process of re-advertising some more. It has also made certain changes in the recruitment rules, as advertisements saw a poor response due to different appointment criteria in different states. The appointments will be on deputation."
"Also 50 posts of deputy general managers (DGM) have been re-advertised, as earlier, the authority could not get a good response and could make only 40 appointments so far against 100 advertised," the official said.
The recruitment rules for DGMs were also changed and have resulted in a better response, he added.
NHAI had plans to appoint 200 managers, 100 deputy general managers and 100 general managers. NHAI has a staff strength of about 400 at present.
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As far as the appointments to the post of manager are concerned, so far 80 have been done, the official said, adding that the process is on and screening is being done for the remaining vacancies. The authority has also requested states to relieve selected officials, he said.
The government has already decided to decentralise NHAI, which earlier had only about 100 field offices manned by junior level officers to oversee projects across the country.
The NHAI has now set up 10 regional offices to be headed by chief general managers (CGMs) for expediting projects. The move to decentralise work is aimed at speeding up the process of road building.
It is also setting up about 190 special land acquisition units across the states, which will address problems like land acquisition and environment clearances in collaboration with the concerned states.