This 16 km elevated stretch through Pench Tiger Reserve is India’s first and largest road stretch. This road allows unrestricted movement of animals even as commuters, including tourists, drive along the 16-km elevated stretch on the corridor connecting Delhi, Ganeshpur-Mohand in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district, and Dehradun.
The elevator corridor runs along National Highway 72A for a 28km stretch situated between the Shivalik forest range that is home to several species of wildlife, including elephants. According to officials, the 16 km elevated highway is the country’s first such road passing through forest areas. Notably, the Rajaji Tiger Reserve sits on one side of the forest.
According to a study by Wildlife Institute of India, usage of these underpasses by tigers has increased by 127%.
1.38 billion people are travelling in India on roads by any mean, not just vehicles using fuel (camels, cycles, carts, walking etc). India is a country that needs roads to survive.
Features of the Elevated Stretches
- The stretches are 37-km long and have five underpasses and four minor bridges. It has ensured that the movement of the animals through the forest won’t be disrupted.
- The stretches were built in 2019 and were constructed at a cost of Rs 240 crore. They also have a 750-m long underpass, which is reportedly the world’s longest highway underpass built exclusively for wild animals. As per reports, later, a 1.4-km underpass was being built at a cost of Rs 140 crore in the Madhya Pradesh section of the highway that was set to become the world’s longest such animal-only underpass.
- As per a report by Economic Times, till December 2019, camera traps captured 5,450 images of tigers, leopards, wild dogs, chitals, Indian bison, wild pigs, jungle cats and porcupines, among others, using the underpasses.
- Why was the project delayed? In 2009, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) gave a contract for a four-lane 117-km road between Seoni and Nagpur for Rs 1,170 crore. But the animal activists protested, and the NHAI agreed to embed an additional cost into the contract for underpasses and bridges. To protect the animals, NHAI also agreed to construct guide walls, that have made the light and soundproof. The walls absorb all the sound of the road and also blocks the glaring headlights at night. The effectiveness of the noise barriers is across 300 feet inside the protected area.
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