New Delhi, The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has entered into a strategic partnership with Reliance Jio Infocomm, India’s largest telecommunications operator, to roll out a nationwide real-time safety alert system for users travelling on national highways.
Under a newly signed memorandum of understanding, the companies will leverage Jio’s extensive mobile network to deliver location-based warnings to motorists approaching high-risk zones. Alerts will notify drivers of black spots with a history of accidents, areas prone to stray cattle, dense fog, roadworks, or emergency diversions and other hazards.
The warnings will be disseminated through multiple channels, including SMS, WhatsApp messages and high-priority flash calls, ensuring visibility even when phones are on silent mode. The system requires no additional roadside infrastructure and will rely instead on existing telecom towers and cell-tower triangulation for geo-fencing.
Santosh Kumar Yadav, chairman of NHAI, described the initiative as “a significant step towards technology-enabled road safety management,” adding that it would “set a new benchmark” for proactive risk communication on Indian highways.
Jyotindra Thacker, President of Reliance Jio, emphasised the scalability of the solution, noting that Jio’s network, which serves more than 500 million subscribers, would enable alerts to be delivered “at national scale with minimal latency.”
A pilot phase will commence shortly under selected NHAI regional offices to refine risk-zone mapping and alert parameters. The project will adhere strictly to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) guidelines and data-protection regulations. NHAI has indicated that it intends to extend similar arrangements to other telecom operators to achieve universal coverage irrespective of network provider.
The collaboration marks a rare instance of India’s highway authority directly harnessing private-sector digital infrastructure for public-safety outcomes. With road accidents claiming approximately 170,000 lives annually in India, according to official statistics, the initiative is expected to contribute meaningfully to the government’s target of halving road fatalities by 2030.
The partnership underscores the growing convergence between telecommunications and transport infrastructure in India, as authorities seek cost-effective, rapidly deployable solutions to long-standing safety challenges on the country’s 150,000-kilometre national highway network.
