The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has released what it is claiming to be its first of its kind annual report – Green Cover Index (NH-GCI) 2025–26. According to a press release, the report has been prepared in coordination with the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
The aim of the NHAI is 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 report add that 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 highways”. “The NH-GCI is reported as a percentage value which represents the proportion of land covered by green cover within the RoW of National Highways at a granularity of one km,” reads the report.
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 for monitoring progressive improvements in green cover.
The initiative has been taken under a three-year Memorandum of Understanding that NHAI signed in January 2024 with the NRSC and the 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,” reads the report.
