Gaya: The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has provided around Rs 50 crore to the Bihar environment, forest and climate change department to implement an environmental conservation and wildlife mitigation plan along the Varanasi-Ranchi-Kolkata Expressway.The project aims to protect wildlife habitats, conserve endangered species, ensure passenger safety and improve connectivity to major religious and tourist destinations, including Bodh Gaya in Gaya district and the Sun temple at Deo in neighbouring Aurangabad district.The conservation plan covers wildlife habitat improvement, conservation of selected Schedule I species, soil and water conservation, forest fire management, and monitoring and evaluation. It also includes planting around 45,000 saplings along the project corridor.NHAI’s regional office in Patna organised a media tour on Friday to showcase the project’s progress, engineering features and regional significance. Project director Devendra Kumar Bansal said, “The expressway’s 33-km Package VII, being constructed in Gaya district at a cost of Rs 1,248 crore, has achieved around 36% physical progress. The package stretches from village Anarban Saleya to Sangrampur, covering the section between km 151 to 184. The project is being executed under the Hybrid Annuity Mode (HAM).”“The conservation and wildlife mitigation plan has been prepared in coordination with the state forest department and the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI). The package includes two elephant underpasses and two animal overpasses to facilitate the safe movement of wildlife across the expressway. These structures, along with other mitigation measures under the conservation plan, are intended to minimise disruption to wildlife movement and improve road safety.”The project also includes high-quality cameras at one-kilometre intervals and trauma centres every 30km along the expressway to improve passenger safety and ensure timely medical assistance.The expressway will begin at Rivasa in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi district and pass through Chandauli in Uttar Pradesh and Kaimur, Rohtas, Aurangabad and Gaya districts in Bihar before entering Jharkhand and West Bengal. It will cover Chatra, Hazaribag, Ranchi, Bokaro, Dhanbad and Ramgarh in Jharkhand, and Purulia and Bankura in West Bengal, before connecting to Kolkata.
