NHAI, vide policy circular dated May 24, 2024, proposed the establishment of a dedicated cell at its headquarters for reviewing of DPRs (“DPR Cell”) related to national highways to ensure safety, reliability and quality of national highways. DPR Cell was established on June 27, 2024. The said policy circular, inter alia, lays down the roles and responsibilities of DPR Cell, structure of DPR Cell, the roles and responsibilities of DPR experts, procedure for selection of such DPR experts and the governance mechanism and the process flow of DPR Cell. Some of the important aspects of DPR Cell are discussed below:
- Roles and responsibilities of DPR Cell DPR Cell is performing
the following key functions:
- develop mechanisms for and undertake: complete monitoring of DPR; uniformity in review of DPR; and preparation of quality and accurate DPRs to enable development of world class national highways;
- examine the bid documents and technical schedules of national highway projects;
- evaluate cost estimates for project basis the design features of the project;
- assist in planning pre-construction activities;
- incorporate the project with the highway information model software;
- undertake site visits to evaluate proposals of DPR and design consultants; and
- suggest new practices to enhance quality output from the implementation of DPR related to a project.
- Structure of DPR Cell
DPR Cell is established under Member (Projects), NHAI who is the chairman and will have a team of 40 (forty) members. The team will comprise of 5 (five) principal DPR experts (which may be increased or decreased as per the requirement) and various domain experts for road safety, traffic, land acquisition, bridges, tunnels, geotechnical experts, senior highway experts and forest specialists, who is engaged as consultants on retainership basis.
Further, DPR Cell will have full time employees (mentioned below in hierarchy) and will perform roles and responsibilities, as follows:
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- the chief general manager /general manager is responsible for empanelment of expert and performance monitoring of DPR Cell team as per the identified key performance indicators;
- the Deputy General Manager is responsible for monitoring all activities related to the DPR Cell management; and
- c) the manager/deputy manager is responsible for, amongst other things, management of DPR experts/empaneled experts, allocation of projects to DPR experts, coordination with field officers in ROs/PDs, Technical Division (Headquarters) and experts, monitoring of all DPR projects.
- Governance Mechanism progress
The functions/reporting and review of the DPR Cell is monitored in the following manner:- quarterly impact review to chief general manager and members;
- monthly presentation to EC;
- monthly meeting Division/ROs/PDs; and with Technical
- monitoring and ensuring site visits of DPR Cell experts.
Monitoring of DPR Cell functioning and supporting is done through an independent third-party support system using 'Datalake' portal, where periodic reports can be submitted to the chairman and members, or delays can be raised to the member (Projects). Third party support system will directly report to the member (Projects) through chief general manager/general manager.
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