If it is a question of who should head the national highway authority NHAI -- a bureaucrat or technocrat-- the latter seems to winning hands down at least in an opinion poll conducted on social networking site Facebook.

As many as 86 out of 102 participants in NHAI's Facebook site have polled in favour of technocrats when the Road Ministry turned to the networking site seeking opinion from masses as to who should head the body.

"We are taking feed back from the masses prior to approaching Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for a change in rules regarding appointment on the post of Chairman, National Highways Authority of India," Road Minister CP Joshi told PTI.

Anybody is welcome to give his or her opinion on the matter, Joshi said.

Impressed by the success story of Delhi Metro under its chief E Sreedharan, the Road Ministry is exploring options to appoint a technocrat as the Chairman of the highways body, which is aiming to build 20 km of roads in a day.

On May 5, NHAI invited visitors on Facebook to participate in an opinion poll as to who should head the body.

Of the 102 visitors who have expressed their opinion, only 16 have favoured bureaucrats.

To consider the candidature of a technocrat for the post of NHAI chief, the ministry is considering amending the eligibility criteria. At present, only an official of Secretary level rank can be appointed on the coveted post.

Earlier Joshi had said that the Ministry was examining whether a technical person like E Sreedharan of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation could be appointed as NHAI chief.

The development comes in the wake of delay in appointment of the chairman, which is under the additional charge of Transport Secretary R S Gujaral.

Delay in appointment of NHAI chief may hamper the progress of Rs 3 lakh crore investment programme to develop highways and several other projects.

The government had constituted a panel under Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar to select a candidate almost a year ago.

Brijeshwar Singh, who was scheduled to retire in August last year, was given extension till December 2010. After Singh's tenure was over Road Secretary Gujaral was given the additional charge till March 31, 2011.

However, in the absence of a final decision, Gujaral's tenure has been extended till June this year.

The Road Ministry has set a target of building 20 km of roads a day and as per the programme NHAI has fixed a target of awarding 7,994 km of roads entailing about Rs 57,000 crore expenditure.

Faced with bottlenecks, NHAI has not been able to meet the target of building 20 km of roads a day.

On other hand, Delhi Metro started in 2002 with 8 km now has a network of nearly 200 km and ferries 17 lakh passengers a day under Sreedharan.