NHAI links highway completion to tree planting and survival
Summary and headline written by AI from the source article. How we work
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) now requires contractors to plant trees on at least 80% of available land alongside new highways in India, and to ensure 90% of those saplings survive.
NHAI issued revised guidelines on Wednesday connecting the approval of project completion and ongoing maintenance payments to these planting and survival rates. The authority will withhold funds until contractors meet the 80% planting target and demonstrate the required survival rate during inspections.
These new rules apply to various highway construction projects including those built using Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC), Hybrid Annuity Mode (HAM), and Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) models. NHAI will also use environmental and plantation experts to verify that contractors are meeting the standards before releasing payments for operations and maintenance. The guidelines specify that contractors must replace any dead plants with new saplings to maintain consistent tree density along the highways.
NHAI first established a Green Highways Policy in 2015, and these revisions aim to strengthen compliance with those earlier environmental goals.
