The government has cleared the National Highways Authority of India Amendment Bill, paving the way for restructuring the authority enabling it to execute its delegated powers.

"The National Highways Authority of India Amendment Bill has been approved. The Bill is to increase the institutional capacity of the NHAI and for ensuring that NHAI effectively executes its delegated powers," Finance Minister P Chidambaram said while briefing the media on Cabinet decisions taken on Thursday night.

The restructuring exercise of the NHAI includes increasing the number of part-time members of the authority from the existing two to six, who would be from non-government sector.

It also includes appointment of six full-time members, against five at present, one each for finance, administration, public private partnership, two members for projects and one for technical.

Besides, it also includes creation of Quality Assurance Cell for promotion of quality assurance initiatives and a Standardisation and R&D Cell for tracking technical developments in road construction.