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To develop environment-friendly national highways with the active participation of the local community, farmers, private sector, institutions and government agencies, the Union government will launch the Green Highway (Plantation, Transplantation, Beautification & Maintenance) Policy, 2015 on September 29. Officials said the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) is trying to get Prime Minister Narendra Modi to unveil the policy.
According to the policy, one per cent of the total project cost of national highways would be earmarked for beautification of the highways, which would be executed by an agency other than the construction company carrying out the civil work.
The plantations and their maintenance might be outsourced following the bidding process as per standard protocol of procurement of MoRTH and its agencies for the stretch. MoRTH and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will appoint the authorised agency for empanelment of plantation agencies. Only empanelled agencies will be allowed to bid for planting work on the national highways.
The ministry has decided to develop the existing national highways and 40,000 km of roads to be added in the next few years as green highways. India has a total of about 48.65 lakh km roads, of which 92,851 km are national highways, accounting for about 1.9 per cent of total road length.
The policy aims at changing the whole process for avenue plantation and landscape improvement. Earlier, the land needed for these activities was not considered during the detailed project report (DPR) stage.
PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS
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Union government will launch the Green Highway (Plantation, Transplantation, Beautification & Maintenance) Policy, 2015 on September 29
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1% of the total project cost of national highways would be earmarked for beautification of the highways, which would be executed by an agency other than the construction company carrying out the civil work
- India has a total of about 48.65 lakh km roads, of which 92,851 km are national highways, accounting for about 1.9 per cent of total road length
