Gadkari calls for a monthly meeting on infra
A Group on Infrastructure meeting, held 7 July 2020, has directed concerned officers to proceed with forest clearance on 187 highway projects, according to a release from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
The ambitious Dwarka Expressway, a project under the Prime Minister’s Office, is facing 1,939 Babool shrubs in a total of 6,364 trees, the virtual meeting heard.
A major issue before infrastructure projects is tree cutting. However, there are ambiguities over the inclusion of certain local breeds of shrubs and plants in forest cover. An example of Babool or Kikar was presented in the meeting. This being an exotic Arabian shrub, its inclusion in the definition of trees is causing hindrance while considering forest clearance for several projects.
The meeting also noted that many projects had not yet applied for Stage II forest clearance.
The concerned officers were directed to initiate the process for the same immediately.
Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari chaired the Group on Infrastructure meeting in New Delhi via webcast. It was attended by Minister for Railways and Commerce Piyush Goyal, Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar and Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Gen (Retd) V K Singh.
Senior officers from related ministries, along with representatives from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka attended the meeting which considered several issues, in respect of pending infrastructure projects, for resolution.
Gadkari directed that henceforth a joint meeting be held between Chairman Railway Board, Director General Forests and Director-General Roads. He called for a monthly meeting to solve outstanding issues.
Javadekar was requested to direct the Forest officers posted in States to follow and implement the circulars and orders issued by MoE&F and CC.
Special High-Powered committees on forest issues can be conducted as is being done in Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh. It was felt that this step will remove many hindrances in the way of infrastructure projects, which will save both time and money.
Goyal requested Gadkari to guide the Group on Infrastructure on the steps to improve citizen’s cause.
Railway and Highway projects should ideally run parallel to each other, however, due to difference in gradients, they sometimes part away. But, together these two bodies can build a number of projects, he acknowledged.
Gen (Retd) V K Singh called on infra professionals to improve their procedures to enhance the pace of their projects.
He opined that Railways and Highways sectors should make combined projects to save cost and to improve usability. #highways #roads #projects #tenders #infrastructure /fiinews.com
