Union Government launched National Green Highways Mission

Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari Under this initiative, lantation drive on 1500 km of National Highways was launched at a cost of about 300 crore upees.Besides, the minister also launched the following initiatives on this occasion.

i. Guidelines for Implementation

ii. Vision Document

iii. Knowledge Reports of the mission

iv. Adopt a Green Highway Program

v. Kisan Harit Rajmarg Yojana

vi. National Green Highways Mission Mobile App

Key features of National Green Highways Mission

• It was launched under the Green Highways Policy that was unveiled in September 2015 to actualize the vision of developing eco-friendly and green National Highways.

• The greening project has a huge potential to generate jobs and can prove to be a game-changer for agriculture and rural economy.

• Greening of one km of highway provides employment to ten people. The initial launch on the 1500 km stretch will employ 15000 people.

• The government has made it mandatory to set aside 1 per cent of the total project cost of any NH contract to a Green Fund corpus that will be used for plantation purposes.

• The afforestation is expected to help in sequestering approximately 12 lakh metric ton carbon annually.

• In future, the mission will be linked with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme.

Other initiatives

• Vision Document: It comprises strategy, mission and action plan for 2016-2026, focuses on core issues, future roadmaps and success indicators for effective implementation of the project.

• Knowledge Report: It was jointly prepared by the NGHM and Yes Bank. It puts transplantation at the centre of discussion in the mission of greening our highways.

• The report presents a compelling case for taking up transplantation as the preferred technique for plantation along the highways.

• Adopt a Green Highway Programme: It seeks to engage corporates, public sector units, Government organizations and other institutions for developing green corridor along National Highways through plantation and allied activity on avenue, median and other available nearby land patches.

• Kisan Harit Rajmarg Yojana: It is aimed at extending green belt beyond the existing ‘Right of Way’ of highways by engaging farmers and providing alternative livelihood option to the nearby communities.

• National Green Highways Mission Mobile App: It will enable the management to monitor all the projects with real time data from the fields.

• The technology will assist in identifying the bottlenecks quickly and ensure speedy and successful implementations of the projects.