Govt to plant trees on 1,500 km highways on July 1: Gadkari

As part of its green initiative, Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) will plant trees along 1,500 km of highways on July 1.
This will be a part of Rs 5,000-crore initiative as the Ministry has already announced earmarking of 1 per cent of the about Rs 5 lakh crore projects for plantation and transplantation.
"It is our endeavour to save and plant trees to conserve the environment...We had to cut trees for building roads but it will be our effort that trees are not cut, we will encourage transplantion. We will also be planting trees on 1,500 km on July 1," Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari today said.

As part of the initiative, four trees in the campus of Road Transport and Highways Ministry, where an automated parking plaza is being built, will be shifted somewhere on the highway, he told reporters.
It will be the first government building to have an automated multi-level car parking facility in its premises at a cost of about Rs 9 crore.
The transplantation could soon be taken on a massive scale and crores of trees could be saved during highways building and other construction activities, the minister said.

He said wide-ranging consultations have already been done with 100 agencies including Malaysian and American consultants on the topic.

"We are encouraging people working in this direction so that no trees are cut in future... We have allocated 1 per cent cost of the road construction for plantation, transplantation, which comes to Rs 5,000 crore," he said.
"NGOs, schools, colleges, charitable trusts, cooperatives, corporates should come forward for this drive. We will plant trees based on the soil of the regions," he added.
The foundation stone for the plaza was laid on May 9. The automated parking lot project is being undertaken by NHIDCL. The facility will comprise ground plus seven floors.
The government is also looking at a hybrid model to

develop inland waterway projects on a PPP model, wherein private parties will undertake development and will be allowed to charge a user fee, Gadkari said today.
Shipping Corporation Chairman and Managing Director B B Sinha said his company has already started a wholly-owned subsidiary to focus on inland waterways on the East Coast.
The new company, to be headquartered in Kolkata, will be given a loan of around Rs 1 crore to buy or hire vessels to operate in the Kolkata-Varanasi/Kolkata-Guwahati routes, the minister said.
Asked about his wishlist from new RBI Governor Urjit Patel, Gadkari said there is a need to reduce borrowing cost by at least 2 percentage points as the current cost of up to 12 per cent for infra loans makes a project unviable.

Gadkari said he is meeting Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on August 26 to present a 'car scrapping policy' as part of the port-led development initiatives.
The policy is aimed at taking advantage of the mandate to switch to Euro VI emission norms by April 2020, which will result in large scale scrapping of vehicles, he said.
The minister claimed the auto industry's revenue can zoom to Rs 20 trillion from the present Rs 4.5 trillion as a result of such a policy implementation.
Gadkari said the government is very sensitive about the shipping sector which is passing through difficult times, and added the Centre is finalising orders of up to Rs 50,000 crore to be given to 27 ailing shipbuilding yards.

The Ministry will also be introducing a Bill in the next session of Parliament to abolish the Tariff Authority for Major Ports (Tamp), Gadkari said.
He said the Government has already formed a company to handle works of over Rs 12 trillion under the ambitious Sagarmala project, aimed at modernising ports.