The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) announced the winners of the 'Green Highways Excellence Awards 2026' as part of its initiative to promote excellence in sustainable green practices across National Highway projects. The awards were presented across three categories: Avenue Plantations, Median Plantations, and Plantation in Land Parcels including clover leaves, interchanges, toll plazas, and service areas.
NHAI received 86 nominations from across the country, comprising 27 nominations for Avenue Plantations, 36 for Median Plantations, and 23 for Plantation in Land Parcels. Following initial screening, 15 nominations (five in each category) were shortlisted for final assessment. The evaluation was conducted against a comprehensive framework where plantation survival rate carried the highest weightage. Other parameters included site-specific plantation action plans, timing of plantation operations, pit size, quality of planting material, protection measures, implementation as per approved design, species diversity, suitability, and use of native species.
Category I (Avenue Plantations) winners included: First Prize - Six Laning of Chilakaluripet Bypass on NH 16 in Andhra Pradesh under RO-Vijayawada; Second Prize - Eight Lane Vadodara-Kim Expressway, Padra to Vadodara Section in Gujarat under RO-Gandhinagar; Third Prize - Gagariya-Bakhasar section of NH-925 and Satta-Gandhav section of NH-925A under RO-Jaipur; Consolation Prize - Annual Maintenance including Incident Management of Trichy-Karaikudi section of NH-210, NH-336, NH-36 & NH-536 including Trichy Bypass under RO-Madurai.
Category II (Median Plantations) winners included: First Prize - Four laning of Hyderabad-Yadgiri section of NH 163 km under RO-Hyderabad; Second Prize - Eight Lane Vadodara-Kim Expressway, Sanpa to Padra Section in Gujarat under RO-Gandhinagar; Third Prize - Varanasi Ring Road, Pkg-I, Harahua to Sandaha section of NH-31 under RO-UP East (Varanasi).
Category III (Plantation in Land Parcels) winners included: First Prize - Jamtha Clover Leaf, Oxygen Bird Park on NH-44 under RO-Nagpur; Second Prize - Monetization of Public Funded operational National Highway Projects under Tolling, Operation, Maintenance and Transfer (ToT) Bundle-7, NE-lI - land parcels at Duhai Interchange under RO-Delhi; Third Prize - Lucknow-Ayodhya Road and Lucknow Outer Ring Road Intersection Junction - Miyawaki Plantation in Loop Areas under RO-UP West (Lucknow).
The awards were open to NHAI field offices, concessionaires, contractors, government agencies, NGOs, and private agencies involved in plantation projects along National Highways. Nominations were supported by geo-tagged photographs, drone videos, site-specific plantation plans, and plantation survival-rate data. Special emphasis was placed on quality, sustainability, effectiveness, and potential for wider replication across the National Highway network. The Green Highways Excellence Awards were instituted in 2025 by NHAI as mandated in the Green Highways Policy, 2015, reinforcing NHAI's commitment to integrating environmental sustainability with national highway development.