Over 300 IIT, NIT civil engineering students join NHAI internships; 2026-27 winter applications open

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) selected 549 students for its Summer Internship Programme 2026, of whom 423 were placed across 125 Public Sector Undertaking (PSUs) and 51 verticals at NHAI HQ. These included 59 students from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and 282 from the National Institutes of Technology (NITs).

Notably, applications are open for NHAI’s Winter Internship programme and Term Internship. The Winter internship is for one month duration and will be held from December 2026-27, while the term internship will take place from January to June, 2027.

According to V Ramgopal Rao, group VC of BITS Pilani campuses and former director of IIT Delhi, a total of 31,884 students have submitted their profiles out of which 7,271 students have submitted their preferences for projects, verticals and 2,818 applications have been recommended by the concerned authorities.

Also read At 7 IITs, 1,495 reserved SC, ST, OBC faculty posts vacant; IIT Kharagpur alone has 710, reveals RTI data

NHAI's Winter, Term Internship 2026-27

For term Internship, total 31,882 students have submitted their profiles out of which, 4,605 students have submitted their preferences and 1,296 applications have been recommended by the concerned institutes. 

The NHAI has mandated a minimum monthly remuneration of Rs 1 lakh for “Young professionals civil engineers.” For senior positions such as team leader and bridge or structural engineer, the authority offered Rs 5 lakh. It also offers structured internships with Rs 20,000 monthly and exposure to infrastructure projects. 

The NHAI recruits approximately 50 engineering professionals annually through Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE). 

In 2026 alone, 30 IIT graduates qualified for the post of deputy manager (Technical), Group A position, highlighting the increasing preference of top-ranked engineering graduates for careers in infrastructure development. 

“Around 16-25 marks (out of 100) are for Educational Qualifications of the Key-Personnel in Consultancy Assignments, in which additional weightage of 25-50% is being given to candidates with Graduation/Post-Graduation from IITs/NITs and other prestigious colleges. Further, knowledge of software is also being sought,” the BITS VC said.

In addition, the authority has mandated that fresh graduates from prestigious colleges should also have to be engaged as young professionals on supervision consultancy projects with a minimum monthly remuneration of Rs 1 Lakh.

Selections in consulting or contractual roles was being done on merit and objective parameters replacing the conventional approach of discretionary and subjective selection.