NEW DELHI: The road transport ministry has made frequent inspection of highway stretches mandatory for engineers and officers to ensure there is no encroachment of these corridors. Moreover, videography using drones has also been made compulsory for collecting regular updates.Encroachers will have to pay for the expenditure incurred in removal of unauthorised occupations as well as an additional charge and a penalty.The ministry has issued a detailed standard operating procedure (SOP) following a Supreme Court direction on a PIL highlighting encroachments on the NH network, which cause congestion and is a factor for road crashes.The SOP said to ensure NHs remain free from unauthorised occupation and are safe, it is “obligatory” on the part of all inspecting authorities of *the ministry and its implementing agencies — NHAI and NHIDCL —* to ascertain such violations and bring them to the notice of officers concerned promptly. The officials must upload inspection notes, along with visual and other evidence on the designated portal.The ministry has specified that every regional officer of the ministry and its agencies will have to inspect stretches under their jurisdiction at least once in three months. The project directors and engineers heading project implementation units need to inspect the stretches under them every month.It also said that contractors and supervision consultants are also responsible for detecting and removing encroachments as per law. They must report such matters to engineers or officers concerned for quick action.For objective monitoring, the highway agencies will carry out drone survey and get aerial imaging done and upload them on the designated portal. While quarterly drone survey has been made mandatory during construction, this exercise will be a monthly routine on highways passing through urban limits having more than a lakh population. In less populated urban limits and rural areas, it will be done in every three and six months, respectively.The SOP has also specified how highway officials will report and take up the matter with local administrative and police authorities, and they can even invoke the jurisdiction of district magistrates, for removal of encroachments.As per the National Highways (Land and Traffic) Act, highway administrations are responsible for prevention of encroachment and their removal, recovery of cost of removal and imposing fine, to regulate right of access to highway and traffic.