The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has announced plans to implement a structured skill development and capacity-building programme aimed at enhancing the capabilities of workers engaged in national highway construction across India. The initiative, announced through a Press Information Bureau release on February 4, 2026, is intended to upgrade workforce skills in line with rising quality standards, increasing project complexity, and the long-term maintenance needs of the country’s expanding national highway network.
As part of a first-of-its-kind exercise, NHAI has carried out detailed mapping of the origin of construction labour down to the village level, identifying key labour-origin clusters across 49 districts in eight states—West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha. This data-driven approach will enable targeted skill training closer to workers’ home regions, improving accessibility, participation, and retention of trained manpower. To ensure a structured and sustainable training framework, prominent local institutions such as ITIs, diploma colleges, and engineering colleges in these regions will be engaged as training centres, while experienced workers with seven to eight years of field experience will be upskilled as “master trainers” to train fresh manpower. The programme will be implemented in partnership with volunteering national highway construction companies, with NHAI providing seed funding and participating firms contributing through their CSR commitments, and NHAI field officers acting as nodal officers at the regional level. A dedicated skill-training website is also proposed to host training videos and course material, supporting continuous learning and wider outreach. According to NHAI, the initiative will not only strengthen the skill base and employability of construction workers but also contribute to improved quality, efficiency, and sustainability in national highway construction and maintenance, particularly in remote and underserved regions
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