MP: “Glowing highway” In MP Reserve Protects Wildlife Animals Rom Speeding Vehicles
Drivers see red in shining table-top marks to slow down
Bhopal: In a first of its kind initiative in the country, a ‘specially designed’ highway has been laid in an eco-sensitive zone of Madhya Pradesh to enhance safety of the wildlife animals.
The two-km-stretch of the Bhopal-Jabalpur National Highway (NH), passing through the Veerangana Durgavati Tiger Reserve, erstwhile Nauradehi wildlife sanctuary, was marked with table-top red marks on the surface to slow down the speeding vehicles, plying in the route in the night, to ensure that the wild animals moving in the area are not knocked down.
“The two-km stretch of the NH in the reserve glow in the night due to the bright red texture of the table-top markings alerting the drivers of the vehicles that the eco sensitive zone has begun, and they need to maintain a speed limit to protect the wild animals”, project director of the regional office of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) here Amrit Sahu told this newspaper on Tuesday.
A five mm thick red surface layer, called table-top mark, was laid over the road in the designated danger zone within the tiger reserve to make the particular entire section of route shine bright red in the night to caution the vehicles to slow down.
The slightly raised markings on the surface of the road also automatically slows down the vehicles.
This was a brownfield road project that was started in 2021-22 to widen the highway from two-lane to four-lane in a 14 km-stretch at a cost of around Rs 122 crore, Mr. Sahu said.
The road widening project was completed in July this year.
As many as 25 underpasses have been built along the 14 km-stretch to ensure that the wild animals move freely in the reserve, unaffected by the traffic on the road.
“Works are underway to construct barriers on both sides of the highway to prevent landslides during the monsoon”, Mr. Sahu said.
The NHAI is adding additional features to the highway to improve the safety of the wild animals as well as the passersby following the recommendations by the state wildlife board, divisional forest officer of the tiger reserve S. K. Udhav told this newspaper.
This was the second highway passing through an eco-sensitive zone in the state where special safety measures have been laid to protect the wild animals from getting affected by the traffic on the highway.
Steel barriers have been built along a stretch of the NH passing through the Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR) in the state to check sound pollution, caused by the traffic on it.
