NH stretches to turn green corridors
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has come up with an initiative which aims at turning National Highways (NH) stretches into Green Corridors.
How?
The National Highway (NH) stretches will be made green corridors by planting trees, landscaping, and laying grass turfs and ornamental shrubs.
Other details:
- This initiative to make the NH stretches eco-friendly is part of the green highways policy to “tree-line” 96,000 km of NHs across the country.
- Funding: A Green Highways Fund would be set apart utilising 1% of the civil work cost while arriving at total road project cost.
- The funds to be transferred to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) would be used exclusively for plantation and maintenance on all NH stretches being developed on the Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) and Build Operate Transfer (BOT) mode.
- The NHAI will act as Fund Manager for maintaining the account and for release of the payments made by the Regional Officer or Project Director based on the recommendation of the monitoring agency-Indian Highways Management Company Ltd (IHMCL).
- Initially, at least one NH corridor in each State would be taken up for model plantation, which would be replicated in other stretches subsequently. The plantation and maintenance would be done through empanelled agencies of MoRTH through competitive bidding.
- The Green Highways (Plantation and Maintenance) Policy, 2015 will be effective for all the new NH projects to be sanctioned from September this year.
Green Highway (Plantation, Transplantation, Beautification and Maintenance) Policy 2015
- Aims to help environment, help local communities, and generate employment
- First year target to cover 6000Km
- Green Highways Fund: 1% of total cost of highway projects
- The objectives of the policy include developing a policy framework for the plantation of trees along highways, reducing the impact of air pollution and dust, providing shade on glaring hot roads during summer, reducing the impact of noise pollution and soil erosion, preventing the glare from the headlights of incoming vehicles, and generating employment
- There will be a strong monitoring mechanism in place by using ISRO’s Bhuvan and GAGAN satellite systems. Every planted tree will be counted and auditing will be done. The agencies performing well will receive annual awards
Issues:
- 4/6 lane highways, with dividers makes it impossible for animals with calves to cross roads leading to accidents and balkanisation of forest areas
- Curtails gene flow that is crucial for sustaining healthy wildlife populations and ecosystems
- National Wildlife Action Plan 2002-2016
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- Emphasis on bypassing national parks and sanctuaries. Ignored.
- Need of “Smart Highways”
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- Carefully conceived underpasses, overpasses, flyovers and canopy bridges, which traditional animal behavior and wildlife movement in consideration.