"Highways can be both carbon sinks and connectivity corridors." Examine India's Green Highways approach in the light of the rapid expansion of the NH network.

India's National Highway network grew by about 61%, from 91,287 km (2014) to 1,46,572 km (March 2026) [1]. The Green Highways Policy, 2015 aims to make sure this expansion also adds green cover. It does a credible job of making up for damage, but it cannot yet show a net gain in trees.

Green Highways as a carbon sink: key features

• Dedicated funding: 1% of each NH project's cost goes to a Green Fund. Plantation was expected to sequester about 12 lakh MT of carbon a year [2].
• Scale: over 3.61 crore saplings across ~1.32 lakh km in five years, planted by SHGs, Forest Departments and contractors [1].
• Outcome norms (Sep 2026): provisional completion needs ≥80% of earmarked RoW planted and ≥90% survival [1].
• Space-based monitoring: the NH Green Cover Index (NH-GCI), prepared with NRSC-ISRO, measures green cover within the RoW [3].
• Legal backstop: plantation is additional to compensatory afforestation under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 [4].

Gaps exposed by rapid expansion

• Gross, not net: headline figures count saplings planted. No national figure for trees felled is published [1].
• Sapling ≠ mature tree: the carbon storage lost with a felled tree takes years to recover. The 12 lakh MT figure is still a launch-time estimate [2].
• Survival long unchecked: the 223.94 lakh plants reported for 2017-22 were planting counts [4]. Survival became a binding condition only in 2026 [1].
• Partial monitoring: the first NH-GCI cycle covered only ~30,000 km [3], about one-fifth of the network. Satellites also cannot tell native forest from monoculture.
• Funding mismatch: the Green Fund grows with road cost, not with tree loss. CAG found Bharatmala Phase-I costs rose from ₹14 crore to ₹24 crore per km, with delays over forest land, yet its audit reported nothing on plantation [5].

Way forward

• Publish a tree balance for each project: trees felled, transplanted, planted and surviving.
• Extend NH-GCI to the full network, with baselines recorded before construction.
• Link Harit Path geo-tagged plant records [6] to the 90% survival check.
• Bring the Green Fund under CAG audit.

Green Highways has moved from counting saplings to checking survival and cover, which gives India real tools to balance connectivity with conservation. Publishing net tree balances would make highways genuine carbon sinks. That would advance SDG 13 and the Article 48A duty to safeguard forests.