Overview
- Union road minister Nitin Gadkari announced the measures at FICCI’s Tunnels & Bridges conference on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, blaming defective Detailed Project Reports for construction failures and road deaths.
- The ministry plans to add performance audits alongside financial audits, grade DPR consultants with ratings that could affect future bid eligibility, and impose punishments or blacklisting for firms that compromise on quality.
- MoRTH said it will review rules on subcontracting to keep accountability with principal contractors and use GST records to trace multi‑layer subcontracting where contracts awarded below estimate are passed down.
- Industry leaders told the conference that the prevailing lowest‑price (L1) procurement model often yields bids 20% or more below estimates and urged wider use of quality‑weighted selection, clearer land and clearance allocation, and geological risk protections.
- The ministry is preparing a large tunnel tender pipeline of about ₹2–2.5 lakh crore and is pressing for modern geological surveys, higher DPR technical standards, and domestic development of tunnel boring machines, steps that could raise costs and slow some procurements while aiming to cut long‑term safety and rework risks.