The Highway Institute, Institut za puteve, has – thanks to its top experts – spent the past 65 years solving the most complicated tasks in the area of traffic, transport, the road management system, engineering structures, geotechnics, project design, environmental protection etc.
We are currently working on the design of original projects for some of the most important roadways in Serbia. We’re aware of their importance and that’s why we’re exerting exceptional efforts to ensure that the projects managed by the state are high quality, notes Highway Institute director Nenad Tomić.
The Highway Institute is a leading architectural design company that implements serious jobs and, equally importantly, educates young engineers. Do you have enough experts for important infrastructure projects?
– Throughout its history, the Highway Institute has always been able to boast of its staff. Today, alongside a large number of employed experts with engineering profiles, primarily in construction professions, the Highway Institute lacks a certain number of experts – graduate construction engineers, geological and geodetic engineers, as well as specialists in certain areas within the aforementioned professions for the needs of important infrastructure projects. A major problem is represented by the outflow of professionals into branches of foreign companies that are able to provide employees with better financial and other conditions.
For the 65 years that we’ve existed, we’ve always endeavoured to be a secure partner, both to bodies of the state administration and to international partners and institutions. And that’s also how we will work in the future
You’ve been engaged in the most important projects over recent years, from Corridor 10 and Corridor 11 to the Fruška Gora Corridor. What is currently in your focus? Could you single out a project as being the most demanding?
– We’re currently completing the preliminary design for the Kadinjača tunnel, preliminary designs for four sections of the Novi Sad – Ruma Highway (Fruška Gora Corridor), the preliminary design for the Šabac-Loznica high-speed road link, the preliminary design for the Ruma-Šabac section of the highway, the development of a preliminary design and main project for the Adrani-Mrčajevci and Mrčajevci- Preljina sections of Highway E-761 (Moravian Corridor), the preliminary design for the reconstruction of the Pazarište- Tutin National Road, a project to repair unstable descents and landslides on roads E-80 and E-763.
Standing out as the most demanding projects are the Kadinjača tunnel, the Paragovo section – the Ruma bypass on the Fruška Gora Corridor and the loop junction project for the RumaŠabac Highway.
The state has created conditions to work and build. How would you assess Minister Mihajlović’s claim that design companies will no longer represent a bottleneck for projects led by the state?
– I see the statement of Deputy Prime Minister Zorana Mihajlović as a clear message for all design companies in Serbia, and especially large companies, whose leaders and managers need to pay particular attention and exert extraordinary efforts in order to ensure that the projects led by the state are of high quality. From her statement, one can unequivocally conclude that it is extremely important to respect the set deadlines that are defined in contracts.