DEHRADUN, October 20 — The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, achieved a civil engineering breakthrough on Monday, completing Asia's longest 12-kilometre elevated wildlife corridor traversing Rajaji National Park on the Delhi-Dehradun Economic Corridor.
Constructed on continuous reinforced concrete piers elevated 10 to 30 metres above forest ground level, the six-lane access-controlled expressway protects ancestral migration corridors for wild elephants, Royal Bengal Tigers, leopards, and ungulates. The design incorporates high-density acoustic sound barriers and specialized light-deflecting screens to eliminate vehicular disturbance, while multiple dedicated subterranean underpasses allow unhindered animal crossings.
NHAI confirmed that the corridor slashes transit travel times between Akshardham in New Delhi and Dehradun from six hours to just 2.5 hours, eliminating steep hill curves and substantially lowering carbon emissions through optimized freight and passenger transport transit.
The ecological profile of Rajaji National Park (notified as a Tiger Reserve in 2015 spanning the Shivalik foothill range across Uttarakhand), principles of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA 2006), and sustainable linear infrastructure engineering are essential study themes in UPSC GS-III (Environment & Infrastructure).