Consultants of faulty detailed project reports culprits: Nitin Gadkari

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari's recent condemnation of faulty Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) as a primary driver of India's road safety crisis brings into sharp focus the systemic governance failures in infrastructure planning. India records approximately 5 lakh road accidents annually, resulting in 1.8 lakh fatalities — the highest in the world — accounting for 11% of global road traffic deaths despite having only 1% of the world's vehicles. This staggering statistic, repeatedly cited by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), underscores a public health emergency that extends beyond transportation into economic and social dimensions. The World Bank estimates that road crashes cost India 3-5% of GDP annually, a figure that translates to over ₹5.9 lakh crore in economic losses — a burden borne disproportionately by the poor and vulnerable. The roots of this crisis lie in the fragmented institutional architecture governing road infrastructure. DPRs, prepared by empanelled consultants, serve as the blueprint for highway design, alignment, drainage, and safety features. However, the selection process for consultants has historically prioritized lowest bid over technical competence, leading to a race to the bottom in quality. The absence of a robust peer-review mechanism, coupled with weak accountability for consultants post-submission, has allowed defective designs — inadequate sight distances, poor geometry, missing crash barriers, faulty junctions — to persist unchecked. The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, while strengthening penalties for traffic violations and introducing provisions for electronic monitoring, did not address the upstream failure in project conception. Gadkari's announcement of a dual audit mechanism — performance audit alongside financial audit — marks a significant policy shift. Performance audits, mandated under the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) mandate under Article 151 of the Constitution, evaluate whether projects achieve intended outcomes efficiently and effectively. Extending this to DPR consultants and contractors introduces a much-needed ex-post accountability layer. The threat of blacklisting, governed by the General Financial Rules (GFR) 2017 and the Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order, 2017, could deter malpractice if enforced transparently. However, the real test lies in institutionalizing independent technical audits by bodies like the Indian Roads Congress (IRC) or the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) Technical Audit Cell, rather than relying on departmental checks. Stakeholders span multiple levels: MoRTH and NHAI as project owners; state PWDs as implementing agencies; consultants (often private firms); contractors; and crucially, citizens who bear the human cost. The judiciary has also intervened — the Supreme Court in 2018 directed states to implement the Sundar Committee recommendations on road safety, including mandatory road safety audits at design, construction, and operational stages. Yet compliance remains patchy. Broader themes emerge: governance deficit in public procurement, the cost of weak regulatory enforcement, and the misalignment between infrastructure ambition (Bharatmala Pariyojana, Gati Shakti) and quality assurance. India's commitment to the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety (2021–2030) — targeting a 50% reduction in deaths — demands more than punitive measures; it requires a paradigm shift toward evidence-based design, mandatory third-party DPR validation, and a professionalized cadre of highway engineers. Future implications hinge on implementation fidelity. If performance audits become routine and blacklisting is applied without political interference, India could see a structural improvement in road geometry and safety. Integration with the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan — which emphasizes multimodal connectivity and data-driven planning — offers a platform for standardized DPR templates and digital twin simulations. But without fixing the consultant selection process (currently governed by Quality and Cost Based Selection under GFR), the same incentives for corner-cutting will persist. The ultimate measure of success will not be announcements, but a sustained decline in the 1.8 lakh annual deaths — each a preventable tragedy rooted in a flawed document.