Raj gives nod for 4.5-km tunnel through Mukundra tiger reserve

KOTA: The Rajasthan government has approved a proposal by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to build a 4.5-km long tunnel through the Mukundra Hills Tiger Reserve (MHTR) as part of the Delhi-mumbai Expressway, being constructed under the Bharatmala Pariyojana, India’s biggest highways development plan

The tunnel -- probably the longest tunnel proposed for a wildlife reserve in the country -has been conceived for the passage of traffic to prevent hindrance to the movement of wildlife in the region, NHAI project director Virendra Singh.

“A 4.5 km-long tunnel would be constructed under the hills of MHTR to allow the traffic to pass through the tiger reserve under the Bharatmala Delhi-mumbai Expressway without causing any interference with the wildlife,” Singh said.

Having received the state government’s approval, the project will next need the nod of the Union environment ministry, the official said.

He said the total cost of the construction of the 104 km expressway in Kota was ₹5,000 crore, including the tunnel, and couldn’t provide a separate cost estimate for the proposed tunnel.

According to state government officials, the NHAI had earlier proposed constructing an elevated road under the Kota-jhalawar national highway project, but the state wildlife department turned it down, saying it will obstruct the conservation of wildlife, especially tigers, in the Mukunda Hills reserve.

The NHAI then proposed constructing a tunnel through the wildlife reserve so that animals in the reserve such as tigers, deers and leopards, don’t get disturbed.

He said the tunnel will begin 500 meters ahead of the hills. Singh said the central government’s forest clearance is still awaited. “Tenders will be floated after the green light from the Centre,

even as the process to acquire land is already on,” he said.

Kota’s chief conservator of forests (wildlife), Anand Mohan, said NHAI initially wanted to construct an elevated road in the region, but the department insisted on making a tunnel. “The NHAI has agreed to it and submitted designs for forest clearance.”

Singh said the Kota-jhalawar national highway plan had proposed constructing an elevated road, for which no provision existed in the Delhi-mumbai Expressway project. The NHAI has built underpasses or elevated roads in some wildlife reserves in the country such as Pench tiger reserve in Maharashtra and Kaziranga National Park in Assam, but none were as big as the one proposed for Mukundra.

Anish Andheria, president of the Wildlife Conservation Trust, said the tunnel was a good news for wildlife and could pave way for building similar wildlife mitigation measures in other wildlife areas, through which highways pass.