It is a fact that by leveraging emerging technologies, government departments are successfully managing to provide better services to the public. However, nowhere is technology being put to so good use than in the preparation of the ‘Green Cover Index’ by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), which will be completed in the next 3 years.

On completion, it will monitor the plantations and greenery along the National Highways of India. This index aims to achieve sector-wise green cover index in the first assessment cycle.

The findings of the index will facilitate comparison and ranking of various National Highways for timely and periodic interventions. Since green cover will be estimated for every 1 km length of National Highways, it will be possible to generate detailed metrics even for individual projects.

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Indian Masterminds interacted with 1983 batch retired Indian Forest Service officer and Advisor (Plantation), NHAI, Mr. Ashok Kumar Jain, to know more about this green initiative. Mr. Jain played an important role in this initiative and in the signing of the related MoU.

GREEN COVER INDEX

The government launched Green Highways Policy in 2015. Since then, the greening of Highway Corridors has been a central focus for the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and NHAI.

Recently, NHAI signed a MoU with the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) under the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) regarding this. They will together develop the Green Cover Index for the extensive networks of NHAI’s highways in the next 3 years. For this, they will undertake a comprehensive pan-India estimation of the green cover.

NHAI monitors the greenery and plantation along highways though field visits. But this system is not fully accurate and sometimes, misses data too. Hence, now, NRSC will undertake a comprehensive pan-India estimation of green cover along Highways using high-resolution satellite imagery.

It will also facilitate targeted interventions in regions that are reported to lack adequate green cover.
This innovative approach promises to be a robust and reliable mechanism, providing a time-saving and cost-effective solution to generate a macro-level estimate of the degree of greenness along National Highways.

HOW IT WILL BE DONE

NRSC has the mandate from government to establish ground stations for receiving satellite data, generation of data products, and development of techniques for remote sensing applications including geospatial services for good governance among other things. It has already conducted successful pilot projects for estimation of green cover along National Highways.

Mr. Jain said, “We do plantations on National Highways through different agencies. This initiative is for monitoring the accurate growth of plantation and greenery with the help of technology. We did a successful pilot project with NRSC on 3 National Highways in Punjab, Rajasthan and Odisha. We verified the satellite data provided by NRSC and it was accurate.”

REGION WISE

After capturing the Green Cover Index region-wise for National Highways in the first assessment cycle, the annual cycles will focus on estimating the growth patterns of green cover along National Highways using scientific techniques.

The project will provide a time-saving and cost-effective solution to generate a macro-level estimate of the degree of greenness along National Highways.

Mr. Jain explained: “Satellite measures chlorophyll in leaves and collects data from it. If there is more greenery then chlorophyll content will also be higher. And if chlorophyll is more, than the images of satellite data will have more pixels and if it is less, then the pixels will be less. It is called NDBI analysis. This will enable monitoring every year whether the growth and quality of the plantations is increasing or not.”

USE OF FINDINGS

Experts say that the findings of the index will be useful for making policies for greener highways. It will also give sufficient data to the Environment Ministry for analysing greenery and cope with pollution. It will not only facilitate comparison and ranking among Highways, but make the common people more aware about the environment.

This initiative underscores a sincere commitment to evaluate NHAI’s pivotal role in fostering the green transformation of highways, thereby contributing to the nation’s overall environmental well-being.