Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari on Sunday said the National Highway 334B, which starts at Baghpat near the UP-Haryana border and ends at Haryana's Rohna, is set to be completed by January 2022.
"NH-334B is nearing completion with 93% progress and is targeted for an early completion by 3 months in January 2022," he wrote on Twitter.
NH-334B, which is a spur road of National Highway 34 and traverses Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, is expected to provide seamless connectivity from UP to Rajasthan via Haryana, ensuring users can bypass Delhi.
Noting that national highways are coming up at an unprecedented pace under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said that the NH-334B also crosses NH-44, providing direct access to commuters between Chandigarh and Delhi. The distance between Chandigarh and Delhi is approximately 245 kilometres and a journey time of around five to six hours is expected to be shortened once the highway becomes operational.
As the development of highways also leads to deforestation, Gadakri, recently in a written reply in Rajya Sabha, informed that the government is compensating the loss by planting trees.
"Development of National Highways involves cutting of trees in the Right of Way acquired by the Ministry. It is, however, ensured that bare minimum tree felling is carried out for widening of existing National Highways," he said, adding, "to compensate the ecological loss, median and road-side plantation is being carried out either by the contractor as a scope of agreement or through Forest Department as deposit work".
A total of 5.51 million plants have been planted in 94 projects that were completed by March 2021. In addition, plantation jobs are also being carried out by private agencies and NGOs through competitive bidding, apart from the compensatory afforestation carried out by the Forest Department for statutory compliance under FCA 1980 and local laws.
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Published 12 December 2021, 12:17 IST