Shocked by green concerns, the NHAI will review the IMS plan | Nagpur News

Nagpur: Shocked by the concerns raised by the Greens about large-scale felling of trees and major environmental damage for the construction of the Intermodal Station (IMS) at Ajni Railway Station, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has decided review the Plan.
The plan will be ready in three months and will have the minimum cutting of trees with 70% of them transplanted. Most of the project will end when I go to people to seek votes in the next general election, Nitin Gadkari, minister of road transport and highways, said on Sunday.
In the new plan, we will not require 0.75 hectares of NEERI land. To curb pollution, all machinery installed for IMS construction work will operate on CNG. The number of trees to be cut will be drastically reduced and 70% will be transplanted on highways and ring roads or in the same project area. We will spend at least Rs 35,000 for each tree transplant, Gadkari said.
The early plan was with a capacity of 1 lakh people, but under the new one, which will connect Ajni with the wide metro metro, over 5-7 lakh people will be able to use IMS. For the request for additional land, we will talk to the state government. The Ministry of Surface Transport under me has sanctioned Rs1,200 crore for IMS, Gadkari said.
The Minister was talking to journalists while reviewing the mega IMS project with the various departments in question. The minister said that in general, the project will need about 200 hectares of railway land. For Phase I, 44.5 hectares have been handed over to the Railway Land Development Authority (RLDA), a legal authority under the Ministry of Railways, by Central Railway. The overall project will need 600-700 hectares of land.
We will have the NHAI-RLDA (SPV) special purpose vehicle to implement the project. Rehabilitation of railway facilities such as schools, neighborhoods, offices, playgrounds, etc. will be the first priority. These services will be built at the CONCOR depot in Ajni, which has been relocated to Khapri, Gadkari said.
Asked by TOI why Khapri was not selected for IMS, Gadkari said, Khapri-Mihan is a logistics center and not a modal station. It would not have been commercially viable. While a dry port is ready in Sindhi, except for air cargo, it will not matter at the cargo center in Mihan.
According to Railway sources, in addition to the 44 acres, the NHAI wants the railroad to hand over the remaining 156 acres to the RLDA so that the SPV can decide on the next phase of the project. The plan is to build destroyed railway infrastructure for IMS on CONCOR land in Ajni. Officials have no idea about Phase II.
We are not sure if the staff will agree to come. There will be opposition from railway unions. NHAI wants simple land without trees so there are no obstacles, sources said.
Instead of CONCOR land in Ajni, we will offer dual land on the Cindy Railway where a dry port will be operational soon, Gadkari said.
Former Honorary Wildlife Guardian Jaydeep Das claimed that there were procedural errors in IMS documents made so far. The NHAI submitted the tender for IMS on February 26, 2019, while the Memorandum of Understanding between NHAI and Railways was signed on March 6, 2019. How can the NHAI submit a tender without signing the Good Land Memorandum, he said.
NHAI Regional Officer Rajeev Agrawal said, Tenders were received only after the MM was signed.
Das also said that although NHAI has awarded the tender for the construction of IMS Nagarjuna Construction Company (NCC), it recently issued a tender for the appointment of a consultant for the preparation of the detailed project report (DPR). How can a tender be submitted without a DPR? He asked.
Agrawal said the DPR was ready months ago and the final tender was for the appointment of a supervisory advisor.
For Phase I, the NHAI lied that only 1,900 trees would be cut down, but when the NMC garden department conducted a study, nearly 7,000 trees would be cut down, Das said.
The Greens are organizing a protest
Green activists staged a silent protest using black sports ribbons against the IMS project in Ramdaspeth where Gadkari was taking a briefing Sunday. About 25 activists reached the site and stood on the other side of the road with saplings in their hands to stress the importance of trees for the highway minister, whose ministry was keen to continue with the project. Police tried to disperse the activists, but due to the presence of the media, they did not take any action.