Kisan Harit Rajmarg Yojana
The Kisan Harit Rajmarg Yojana is a a pilot scheme to extend green belt beyond the existing ‘Right of Way’ of highways by engaging farmers and providing alternative livelihood option to the nearby communities. Under the Kisan Harit Rajmarg Yojna, NHAI will provide technical and financial assistance to farmers for plantation of trees in portions of their farmland along highway stretches. The plantation is estimated to sequester approximately 12 lakh tonnes carbon annually. It was launched along with two other schemes- ‘Adopt a Green Highway Program’ and the National Green Highways Mobile App.
The three plantation schemes launched by Nitin Gadkari mainly call the big business houses, educational institutions, NGOs and corporates to take active part in the scheme. Some of the corporates that have expressed their willingness to contribute to the scheme are Coal India Ltd and Power Finance Corporation have shown interest to take up the task of plantation and their maintenance for five years. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has adopted a stretch of NH-31. Haryana government has offered to bear the entire expense for making NHs in the state green.
The scheme has multiple benefits. It will not only make the highways green but also improve facilities to make travelling in highways comfortable and is also expected to generate more than 1 lakh jobs. This is because certain facilities like eating joints, toilet facilities, play space for children, resting space for drivers besides a small market for selling local produce. There is an estimate of every 1 km of highway generating employment for at least 10 persons.
The initiative has been undertaken for the reason that at present only 10% of the highways has a green cover on both sides. There is a vast stretch of highways that do not even have the basic facilities. Thus, one can consider this scheme as a part of the National Highways Development Project. The project was implemented in 1998 under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. “National Highways” account for only about 2% of the total length of roads, but carry about 40% of the total traffic across the length and breadth of the country. This project is managed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) under the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways. The NHAI has invested US$71 billion for this project, as of 2006. The NHDP represents 49,260 km of roads and highways work and construction in order to boost economic development of the country.
Currently, around ten states have already taken the initiative under this scheme and have allocated certain amounts out of the state budget for this purpose. The states are: Haryana signed agreement for 415 km, Jammu & Kashmir for 100 km, Telangana for 150 km, Andhra Pradesh for 360 km, Madhya Pradesh for 150 km, and Assam for 50 km etc. However, the initiative will be successful only if all the states take up the responsibility being imposed by the state. If this continues, the scheme will become a toothless one without any successful implementation.
