New Delhi: Public private partnership has now made a foray into wildlife conservation. The decades-old national highway passing in the elephant rich area of Rajaji National park between Haridwar and Dehradun has been infamous as a killing ground for the pachyderms. But the modern highway that has to be constructed on a build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis will have two exclusive elephant corridors

The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has sought the National Wildlife Board’s clearance to build two 750-metre-long flyovers in the Rajaji National Park stretch of the Delhi-Dehradun highway The area below flyovers will be “elephant corridors” that will at least reduce danger posed to them while crossing road.

The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has sought the National Wildlife Board’s clearance to build two 750-metre-long flyovers in the Rajaji National Park stretch of the Delhi-Dehradun highway The area below flyovers will be “elephant corridors” that will at least reduce danger posed to them while crossing road.

“The Uttranchal government wanted some steps to be taken for the safety of everyone elephants and road users. We have now sought the Wildlife Board’s clearance for these two flyovers. Once the Supreme Court also clears it, these would be bid out,” said a senior official.

About 5-6 km stretch of the Dehradun-Haridwar highway witnesses a lot of elephant movement. This area falls in NHAI’s National Highways Development Project phase-in plan to widen Delhi-Haridwar-Dehradun road. The 77 and 69-km stretch between Muzaffarnagar-Haridwar and Haridwar-Dehradun, respectively, fall in the phase III. In this phase, the government has approved four laning of 12,109 KM of national highways at a cost of Rs 80,626 crore. NHAI had also taken special steps in other wildlife sanctuaries. In Jharkhand, it has fenced road sides passing through wildlife rich zones. In a sections of the Delhi-Kolkata highway here, it has built 11 box culverts under the road for small animals to cross it safely.

A bridge coming up on Chambal river off Kota bypass has been designed as a cable state bridge to avoid putting any piers in the riverbed and disturb a thriving crocodile sanctuary. India’s ambitious highway expansion programme with a target of modernising 40,000 km by 2015 for about $ 50 billion has to pass through some sensitive areas like wildlife sanctuaries. Land acquisition and clearance for these areas remains a challenge although the NHAI is now coming up with innovative solutions to meet this challenge.

Regional