Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and MSME Shri Nitin Gadkari has stressed upon utilising modern and green technologies in road construction all over the country. Chairing a meeting to review New Green Highways Policy (Plantation) and to discuss use of new technologies in road construction through video conference today, he said that it should be our mission to reduce cost of construction by 25 % and for this new technologies are required.

The Minister launched ‘Harit Path’, a mobile app to monitor the plantations through geo-tagging and web-based GIS enabled monitoring tools.  The app has been developed by NHAI to monitor location, growth, species details, maintenance activities, targets and achievements of each of its field units  for each and every plant under all plantation projects.  While inaugurating the mobile app, the  Minister emphasized on strict monitoring of plantation and transplantation of trees.

The Minister suggested that specialised persons/agencies should be hired for plantation of trees along the highways. He suggested involving NGOs, Self help groups and Horticulture and Forest department in this. The officials assured that they will be able to achieve the goal of 100% plantation on highways upto March 2022.

While discussing the issue of Transplantation of trees, Shri Gadkari said that it should be our mission to save all the trees from being cut and specialised agencies equipped with new technologies should be hired for the purpose. The minister stressed upon using local indigenous material like jute, coir, etc for strengthening purposes. Shri Gadkari also said that right choice of species suiting local conditions is also very important.

While discussing new technologies in road construction, he said that it should be our mission to reduce cost of construction by 25 % and for this new technologies are required. He said that specific areas like hilly areas, border areas and coastal areas need different approach and technologies. He appreciated the use of such technology in road construction in Andaman and Nicobar and motivated NHIDCL to follow the example in rest of the projects.

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