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11 road ministry officials removed over highway collapses: Gadkari
Nitin Gadkari said the action followed a series of failures involving bridges, flyovers and highway infrastructure across several states
The Union road transport ministry removed 11 officials from service following performance assessments and took disciplinary action against another 11 officers for negligence and dereliction of duty in connection with collapses, cave-ins and structural failures on newly constructed national highway projects in 2025 and 2026, according to information tabled in Parliament on Wednesday.
Responding to a Rajya Sabha question by Shiva Sena UBT MP Sanjay Raut, road transport minister Nitin Gadkari said the action followed a series of failures involving bridges, flyovers and highway infrastructure across several states.
The ministry said action against contractors, concessionaires and consultants included termination of contracts, financial penalties, debarment, blacklisting and declaring firms as non-performers, depending on the nature of deficiencies.
He detailed 19 incidents across Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Meghalaya.
Among the measures taken were penalties, suspension of project officials, termination of engineers, debarment of contractors and independent engineering firms, and reconstruction at contractors’ cost.
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In a separate question related to the cave-in on the Delhi-Dehradun Expressway, Gadkari said the affected location developed two potholes, which were rectified by the contractor at its own cost under contractual obligations.
It attributed the failure to localised waterlogging after resistance at the site delayed drainage connections and slope protection works, leading to water accumulation during heavy rainfall.
The ministry said show-cause notices have been issued to both the authority’s engineer (third party) and the contractor in the Delhi-Dehradun case, while the team leader of the authority engineer and the contractor’s project manager have been suspended.
It added that an independent structural and pavement audit of the Delhi-Dehradun Economic Corridor was carried out by the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) and IIT Roorkee.
The ministry said National Highways Authority of India’s (NHAI) existing framework requires independent road safety audits, preventive structural inspections and expert committees to investigate any structural failure, with preliminary reports to be submitted within three days and final reports within seven days.
