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Picture Courtesy:  DD News

Context:

The National Highways Authority of India has announced a first-of-its-kind initiative to develop Bee Corridors along National Highways, marking a shift from ornamental roadside plantations to ecological infrastructure.

What are Bee Corridors?

Bee Corridors are linear ecological habitats developed along highways with a carefully designed mix of flowering trees, shrubs, herbs, and grasses that provide year-round food and shelter for honeybees and other pollinators. These corridors are planned to maintain a continuous supply of nectar and pollen through staggered flowering across different seasons, ensuring a near-continuous blooming cycle. The plantation strategy emphasizes the use of native and regionally suitable species such as Neem, Karanj, Mahua, Palash, Jamun, Siris, and Bottle Brush to enhance ecological resilience and support local pollinator populations. The design also retains natural elements such as flowering weeds, dead wood, and hollow trunks, which serve as nesting and habitat sites for wild pollinators. To align with the natural foraging behaviour of bees, clusters of flowering vegetation are planted at intervals of approximately 500 metres to 1 kilometre, corresponding to the average foraging range of many bee species. 

Implementation Plan:

• The implementation of the Bee Corridor initiative will be based on local agro-climatic conditions, soil characteristics, and regional ecological suitability to ensure higher survival rates and long-term sustainability. 

• Suitable National Highway stretches, medians, avenues, and vacant land parcels available with the National Highways Authority of India will be identified for developing pollinator-friendly green corridors. 

• Field offices across the country will prepare site-specific plantation plans, identify priority locations, and ensure proper execution, maintenance, and monitoring of the plantations. 

• Each NHAI field office will develop at least three dedicated pollinator corridors during 2026–27 to create a distributed network of ecological habitats along highways. 

• NHAI plans to plant around 40 lakh trees along National Highways in 2026–27. 

• Nearly 60 percent of the total plantation will be undertaken under the Bee Corridor initiative to integrate biodiversity conservation with sustainable highway infrastructure development. 

Significance of Bee corridors:

• Pollinator conservation: Bee Corridors play a crucial role in addressing the growing ecological stress faced by pollinators in India due to habitat loss, indiscriminate pesticide use, urbanisation, and climate change. By creating continuous stretches of nectar- and pollen-rich vegetation, the initiative helps restore foraging habitats, provides nesting spaces, and supports both managed honeybees and wild pollinator species, thereby strengthening pollinator populations. 

• Enhancing agricultural and horticultural productivity: Pollinators are essential for food security, as they contribute to the productivity of nearly 75 percent of global food crops. Improved availability of pollinators enhances crop yield, quality, and genetic diversity, particularly for fruits, vegetables, oilseeds, and horticultural crops. By supporting pollinator health, Bee Corridors indirectly contribute to farm income, agricultural sustainability, and nutritional security. 

• Strengthening ecological balance and biodiversity: The initiative promotes biodiversity conservation by creating habitats for a wide range of species, including bees, butterflies, birds, and other beneficial organisms. It strengthens ecosystem services such as pollination and natural pest control, while improving landscape connectivity through linear green corridors that reduce habitat fragmentation and enhance ecological resilience. 

• Promoting sustainable and climate-resilient infrastructure: Bee Corridors integrate nature-based solutions into highway development by shifting the focus from ornamental plantations to ecologically functional green infrastructure. This approach enhances carbon sequestration, improves the microclimate, reduces ecological degradation, and reinforces India’s commitment to green, sustainable, and climate-resilient infrastructure development. 

Challenges in implementing Bee corridors:

• Low survival rate: Roadside plantations often face high mortality rates due to inadequate watering, poor soil conditions, grazing by animals, and lack of long-term maintenance. Ensuring regular monitoring, irrigation, and protection across long highway stretches remains a major operational challenge. 

• Exposure to pollution and environmental stress: Plants along highways are exposed to vehicular emissions, dust deposition, heat stress, and soil compaction, which can affect plant health, flowering cycles, and nectar quality, thereby reducing their effectiveness for pollinators. 

• Pesticide use: The use of herbicides and chemical sprays for vegetation management along highways can harm bees and other beneficial insects. Balancing vegetation control with pollinator safety requires careful ecological management practices. 

• Habitat fragmentation: Although Bee Corridors aim to improve connectivity, continuous habitat creation across diverse terrains, urban stretches, and infrastructure barriers can be difficult, limiting ecological effectiveness in some regions. 

• Water Stress: In arid and semi-arid regions, water scarcity, extreme temperatures, and erratic rainfall can affect plant survival and flowering patterns, making it difficult to maintain year-round nectar availability for pollinators. 

Way Forward:

• Integration with sustainable agriculture: The effectiveness of Bee Corridors can be enhanced by linking them with organic farming clusters, natural farming initiatives, and apiculture development programmes. Such convergence will create pollinator-friendly landscapes, improve crop productivity, support honey production, and generate additional livelihood opportunities for farmers and rural communities. 

• Reduction in pesticide and chemical exposure: To ensure pollinator safety, it is important to minimise the use of chemical pesticides and herbicides along highways and adjoining areas. The adoption of eco-friendly vegetation management practices, biological control methods, and integrated pest management will help protect pollinators and maintain ecological balance. 

• Community participation and local stewardship: Long-term success of the initiative requires active involvement of local communities, self-help groups, and beekeepers in plantation care, monitoring, and protection. Community-based stewardship can improve survival rates of plants, promote environmental awareness, and create a sense of ownership over ecological assets. 

• Expansion to other infrastructure and urban landscapes: The Bee Corridor model can be scaled up beyond highways to other linear and public spaces such as railway corridors, canal banks, transmission line routes, and urban green belts and parks. Such expansion will help create a nationwide network of pollinator habitats, strengthen landscape connectivity, and contribute to broader goals of biodiversity conservation and climate-resilient development. 

Conclusion:

The Bee Corridor initiative represents a forward-looking approach to integrating biodiversity conservation with infrastructure development. By creating pollinator-friendly habitats along highways, it supports ecosystem services, strengthens agricultural productivity, and enhances ecological resilience. With effective implementation, maintenance, and community participation, the initiative can serve as a model for promoting sustainable and climate-resilient infrastructure across the country.

Source: PIB