NHAI Releases First Annual Report on National Highways – Green Cover Index (NH-GCI) for 2025-26

With the objective to provide a quantitative assessment of the plantations along the National Highways, NHAI has released the first-of-its-kind Annual Report on the National Highways Green Cover Index (NH-GCI) 2025–26 . The report has been prepared in coordination with the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) . The initiative aims to provide a scientific and quantitative assessment of green cover within the Right of Way (RoW) along the National Highways network by leveraging advanced space-based technologies. The assessment is derived from chlorophyll content detected through high-resolution satellite sensors, enabling an objective, technology-driven measure of vegetation presence along the left and right sides of the highways. NH-GCI is reported as a percentage value that represents the proportion of land covered by green cover within the RoW of National Highways at a granularity of one kilometre . In this first assessment cycle, approximately 30,000 km of National Highways spanning 24 States have been covered for the period July–December 2024 . Subsequent annual cycles will track year-on-year changes to monitor progressive improvements in green cover. The initiative has been taken under a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that NHAI signed in January 2024 with the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) . This innovative approach offers a robust, reliable, cost-effective, and time-efficient mechanism for macro-level estimation of the green cover along the National Highways. The findings will enable comparison, ranking, and targeted interventions for improved plantation management. The NH-GCI initiative reflects NHAI’s strong commitment to enhancing environmental sustainability and advancing the green transformation of the National Highway network. A copy of the report is available on the NHAI website. Read the report by clicking the following link: https://nhai.gov.in/nhai/sites/default/files/mix_file/NRSC_NH-GCI_FinalReport_09Dec2025.pdf