New high-speed corridors to get one-metre high wall to prevent cattle menace

Why in the News

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has issued its first standardised design and safety guidelines for access controlled high speed National Highways. They prescribe a one metre high wall along the outer edge of such corridors to prevent unauthorised access and the entry of stray cattle, and they bar openings in median walls. The guidelines arrive while the NHAI is asking the Supreme Court to modify a direction of November last year on stray animals, having told the Chief Justice of India that herding cattle off highways is not its responsibility and that compliance would cost around Rs 27,000 crore. The tension is that the authority is being asked to solve by construction a problem it says belongs to local authorities, and it is doing so only on corridors not yet built.

What are the NHAI’s high speed corridor guidelines?

1. Nature of the document: This is the first time the NHAI has prescribed standardised technical and safety provisions for high speed corridors, so design that was previously project specific is now uniform.
2. Scope of application: The guidelines apply to all upcoming four to six lane greenfield and brownfield access controlled National Highways. A greenfield corridor is built on a new alignment, a brownfield one upgrades an existing road.
3. The existing stock: The length of operational access controlled high speed corridors currently stands at 3,052 km, which the guidelines do not reach.

What physical measures do the guidelines prescribe?

1. Boundary wall: A one metre high wall runs along the outer edge of the corridor, stated as a measure against unauthorised access and the entry of stray cattle.
2. Median openings barred: Openings in median walls on access controlled highways are prohibited, which removes the informal crossing points that produce head on collisions.
3. Collapsible barriers: Collapsible barriers at a distance of 5 km are permitted so emergency and maintenance vehicles can cross where an opening is not available.
4. Jersey barriers as an alternative: Modular concrete or plastic walls used to separate lanes of traffic and prevent head on crashes, known as jersey barriers, are allowed in place of a solid median wall.
5. Structures get a stronger median: At bridges, tunnels and overpasses the guidelines require a median wall topped with metal crash barriers.

Why is stray cattle a design problem rather than an enforcement one?

1. The authority’s stated position: The NHAI has told the Chief Justice of India that it cannot herd stray cattle and animals off public thoroughfares or find them shelter homes, and that the responsibility lies with the respective local authorities.
2. The cost of the alternative: The NHAI has put compliance with the court’s direction at around Rs 27,000 crore, which is the figure that makes a boundary wall on new corridors cheaper than a national removal and sheltering operation.
3. The procedural move: The law officer for the NHAI has requested the Chief Justice to constitute a Bench so the authority can seek modification of the court’s direction of November last year.
4. The Railways precedent: The Railways has fenced stretches against the same problem, including metal barrier fencing along the 623 km Mumbai Ahmedabad train route, which is the working model for treating animal intrusion as an exclusion engineering task.

Challenges to the high speed corridor safety guidelines

1. The existing network is untouched: The guidelines apply only to upcoming corridors, so the operational network keeps its current design. Eg. Stray cattle collisions occur on the 3,052 km of already built access controlled stretches, which the wall requirement does not reach.
   The Fix: Fix a retrofit schedule with annual targets for boundary walling the operational access controlled network, funded from the toll revenue of those same stretches.
2. A wall displaces animal movement rather than ending it: Sealing a corridor severs the routes livestock and wildlife use to cross, which pushes the crossing to the nearest gap. Eg. Linear infrastructure across the Kanha Pench corridor required dedicated animal underpasses because fencing alone concentrated crossings.
   The Fix: Make an animal passage plan, with underpasses or overpasses at surveyed crossing points, a mandatory annexure to every corridor’s design approval.
3. Jurisdiction over stray cattle remains unsettled: The duty is said to lie with local authorities, and those authorities have neither the shelter capacity nor a dedicated funding line for it. Eg. Municipal cattle pounds in most Indian cities hold a small fraction of the stray population in their jurisdiction.
   The Fix: Fix a single statutory owner for stray animal management on and around National Highways, with a dedicated head in the highway project cost rather than in municipal budgets.
4. Barred median openings raise emergency response times: Removing crossings means a responder on the wrong carriageway must travel to the nearest collapsible barrier. Eg. The guidelines set those barriers 5 km apart.
   The Fix: Require a mapped and numbered barrier registry shared with State emergency services and ambulance dispatch systems, so the nearest crossing is known at the time of the call.
5. Encroachment follows the wall rather than stopping at it: A boundary wall becomes the new edge against which informal settlement, parking and vending accumulate. Eg. Service road encroachment along existing National Highway stretches has repeatedly narrowed the usable carriageway.
   The Fix: Attach a demarcated and surveyed right of way strip outside the wall, with clearance responsibility written into the concession agreement of the corridor operator.
6. Design standards without an audit do not become practice: A guideline binds only where a body checks that the built corridor matches it. Eg. Road safety audit provisions exist in Indian highway practice but are inconsistently applied at the construction stage.
   The Fix: Make an independent road safety audit sign off a precondition for the completion certificate and for the start of tolling on every new corridor.

Conclusion

The NHAI has answered a court direction about stray animals by writing a construction standard rather than by accepting an enforcement duty. The standard binds only corridors that do not yet exist, and the authority’s jurisdictional objection over the operational network remains live. The marker to watch is the Bench the NHAI has asked the Chief Justice to constitute, since its ruling decides whether the removal and sheltering obligation stands or is modified.

Back2Basics: National Highways Authority of India

1. Statutory basis: The NHAI was constituted under the National Highways Authority of India Act, 1988, and became operational in 1995.
2. Administrative control: It functions under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
3. Mandate: It is responsible for the development, maintenance and management of National Highways entrusted to it.
4. Delivery role: It is the implementing agency for the Centre’s large highway programmes, including Bharatmala Pariyojana.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2014, GS3, 12.5 marks] National Urban Transport Policy emphasises on ‘moving people’ instead of ‘moving vehicles. Discuss critically the success of the various strategies of the Government in this regard.”