Making of a ‘green’ highway

THE Detailed Project Report of the Ministry of Environment says that the Rs.10,000-crore, 277.30-kilometre-long, eight-lane expressway would halve the travel time from Chennai to Salem to two and a half hours, resulting in savings of fuel, especially diesel, to the tune of 2.45 lakh litres, or Rs.700 crore, annually. Nearly 70 per cent of the land acquired for the project would be fertile farmland, with intermittent built-up areas, “though a few acres of forests lands. Extent of land acquisition Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, while replying to a Call Attention motion on the floor of the Tamil Nadu Assembly on June 11, said the proposed corridor would require 1,900 hectares of land, of which 400 hectares belonged to government “poromboke” and another 49 hectares belonged to the Forest Department. Mohan, claimed that the two national highways could not be widened as that would involve demolition of several residential and commercial establishments, besides acquiring vast tracts of land. But environmentalists say that the expressway project annexes land abutting forests and the mineral-rich Javadu Hills, Arunoothu Hills, Shervaroyan Hills, Kalrayan Hills, Kaunthi Hills and Vediappan Hills in the ecologically sensitive Eastern Ghats corridor.