New Delhi: The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will deploy AI-powered dashcam analytics services (DAS) on approximately 40,000 km of NH network that is under operation and maintenance contract. The decision has been taken amid complaints from passengers against ride quality and road conditions.For effective monitoring, NHAI has divided the country into five zones and contracts have been given for two years.This week, the Highways Ministry informed the Rajya Sabha that the number of public complaints on the quality of highway construction and condition of the riding surface of the NH has registered an increase of more than 60% this year compared to last year. As of March 12, such complaints increased from 7,030 to 11,340 in 2024-25. The ministry also said that 9,977 complaints have been resolved this year.An NHAI official said that dashcams will be installed in every highway patrol vehicle and these will record all the details including 30 types of defects and anomalies on the highways. The primary focus will be on the condition of the pavement, which will include issues such as potholes, cracks, ruts and surface deterioration as well as blurred lane markings, damaged crash barriers and non-functional street lights.“The recordings will be fed into a specialized IT platform, which will have dedicated modules for data management and AI analytics. It will generate reports within a day and identify faults. Based on this, instructions will be issued to agencies and officials concerned to rectify the issues,” an official said.The system will also identify other safety concerns, including illegal center openings, unauthorized signboards, encroachments and illegal parking.The survey will be conducted at least once a week, with night-time inspections conducted at least once a month to assess the performance of road signage, pavement markings, road studs and highway lighting. It will also cover important issues like water stagnation, missing drainage covers, vegetation growth and condition of bus bays.