Islamabad - National Highway Authority (NHA) is committed to building environment-friendly roads while integrating environmental, economic and community goals into the planning, design, construction and operation of national highways.
To shape this commitment into reality, an Environment Section has been formed at NHA headquarters to take care of environmental aspects of highways, an official of NHA told APP on Sunday.
Main tasks performed by Environmental section include the screening of projects according to Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, hiring of a consultant to prepare environmental impact assessment, preparation of terms of reference for consultants. The NHA environmental section is also responsible for review of initial environmental examination report and environmental impact assessment, it also coordinates with Environment Protection Agency (EPA) and International Financial Institutions and Agencies for approval and organises and conducts a public hearing and does processing of progress reports Conduct-environmental audits.
It also prepares due diligence reports and environmental grievances redressal. Environmental Management System at different stages is as follows. At the planning stage, the environmental cell does initial Environmental Impact Assessment at the conception of project and selection of road alignment having minimum environmental and social consequences. He said that a comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment study is carried out for selected alignment and environmental mitigation cost is included in PC-1.
At construction stage Site Specific Environmental Management and
Monitoring Plans are formulated and implemented by the environmental section and Environmental Site Inspections performance monitoring are also done. The section also organizes environmental audits at the end of construction stage and monitoring reports are prepared and submitted to concerned quarters.
He said at the execution stage, traffic safety signboards are placed by tree plantation is done by the NHA environmental cell; highways and motorway police is deputed. He said that there is a system of taxes and penalties in case environmental pollution. He said that at present NHA is implementing a large number of projects with the assistance International Financial Institutions
(IFIs) such as World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Japan
International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Islamic Development Bank
(IDB), which are subject to the IFI’s Environmental & Social Safeguard Policies. Some of the exemplary projects with respect to Environmental Management in NHA are E-35 and M-4. He said that NHA is determined to carry out afforestation across highways and motorways. In this regard, approximately 5.3 million trees/ plants have been planted in the right of way and in medians along motorways and highways for beautification, landscaping and to control environmental pollution since 1993 to 2017.
Recently FWO in collaboration with NHA has planted 300,000 plants on Islamabad-Lahore Motorway. Furthermore, one million Plants are proposed for plantation on Faisalabad- Multan Motorway, in KPK, Sindh and Balochistan region.
