Nagpur: In the last 19 years, the 10 project implementation units (PIUs) under the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) have developed over 2,455km of roads, for which 1.84 lakh trees were felled in the state.
Information for 2001-2020 received under the RTI Act by city green activist Jaydeep Das revealed that NHAI chopped more than 1.82 lakh trees for road widening and planted over 5.68 lakh trees, three times more than what was cut, in lieu of the felled ones.
According to Das, considering the Indian Road Congress (IRC)-2009 norms of planting 666 trees per km, NHAI should have planted more than 16.35 lakh trees instead of 5.68 lakh. “This is a shortfall of over 10.67 lakh trees. The number would be more if the IRC-SP-21 guidelines, which ask to plant 999 trees per kilometre, are considered,” says Das.
The RTI pertains to NHAI regional office, which looks after PIUs at Nagpur I & II, Washim, Nanded, Yavatmal, Aurangabad, Chandrapur, Dhulia, Jalgaon, and Amravati.
On the statistics, NHAI regional officer Rajeev Agrawal says, “The data must be based on how many kilometres of roads were developed, trees cut and planted. However, a similar question should be raised with the forest department, how many trees it planted towards compensatory afforestation for road development, and what is the status. This piece of information must not be part of the RTI, I suppose.”
However, Das said, “Plantations by forest department are done in case forest land is diverted for highway development. For example, NH-7, where forest land was diverted and compensatory afforestation was done in South Umred. For routine road development and tree felling, NHAI has to plant trees on the roadside.”
One of the queries to all the PIUs was the survival status of the trees planted. However, Das said, “Only two PIUs, Nagpur-I and Nagpur-II, gave details of survival while other PIUs did not supply information.” TOI has already reported on March 3, how survival figures by Nagpur-I unit were fudged.
The RTI activist asked, “If the NHAI plants so many trees, why is there no greenery or trees along the highways.”
Tree plantation expert Shrikant Deshpande says, “The plantation survival is poor because SOP is not being followed. Another reason is that contractors are not masters in tree plantation, NHAI offers a meagre rate of Rs1,700 per sapling for three-year maintenance. Whereas, actual maintenance cost comes to Rs3,500. Hence, contractors are not interested in tree plantation.”
Environment lawyer Manish Jeswani suggested NHAI should appoint separate agency like National Highway Tree Plantation Authority to exclusively take up plantation works under a separate project director. Other reasons for plantation failure are grazing, fire, poor quality pits, lack of watering, poor maintenance. The authority should forfeit EMD if dead plants are not replaced.
Jeswani said the MoRTH in August 2015 has come out a policy on eco-friendly highways for reducing adverse effects of air and noise pollution, soil erosion, and to provide much-needed shade during summer months. However, trees are not seen along the roads, and mortality rates are high.
The MoRTH also decided that I% of the civil work cost should be added separately while arriving at the total project cost (TPC) of highways being developed on EPC/BOT mode. However, only NHAI would be able to tell what happened to this money, which was to be utilized under the ‘Green Highways Fund’.
THE NUMBER GAME
* PIUs: 10
* ROADS: 2455KM
* TREES CUT: 1,84,317
* TREES PLANTED: 5,68,398
* NEEDED TO BE PLANTED: 16,35,712
* SHORTFALL: 10,67,314
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