Barrier-free movement of both wildlife and traffic through the Kaziranga National Park landscape is poised to become a reality in a couple of years with the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) greenlighting the elevated corridor project through Kaziranga National Park. Conservation of the ecological integrity of the natural landscape of the World Heritage Site during the execution of the mega connectivity project will be a challenging task and will require great engineering skill and expertise to navigate the construction challenges. The 34.5-km-long elevated corridor is to be developed as part of the widening and improvement of the 85.6-km-long Kaliabor-Numaligarh stretch of the existing carriageway along National Highway 715. The CCEA’s approval of the total capital cost to the tune of Rs 6957 crore will ensure steady fund flow to the project, but meeting the target datelines will be crucial to keep disturbance to wildlife migration through the animal corridors at the minimum. Enforcement of speed limits along the animal corridors of the national park has helped reduce animal deaths from vehicle hits, more particularly during the annual floods, but it slows down traffic, resulting in a loss of productive hours. The elevated corridor will ensure a seamless movement of traffic through the landscape, while park animals will be able to move freely to the Karbi Anglong foothills, which form a vital part of the landscape for food and shelter. The existing two-lane highway stretch fragmented the landscape, posing barriers to the natural migration of the park animals through nine animal corridors and also during floods when park areas get submerged. The congested and densely built-up areas in Jakhalabandha town in the Nagaon district and Bokakhat town in the Golaghat district on the other end of this highway stretch further slow down the traffic, which has a cascading effect along the national highway. Widening of the highway to four lanes and bypassing the two towns will facilitate faster traffic movement, and this will catalyse industrial growth and boost tourism activities not just in Assam but also in the neighbouring states of Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. The elevated corridor and widened highway stretch will clear a crucial bottleneck along Asian Highway 1, and this reality will turn the attention of the countries connected by it towards Assam for potential investment, trade and commerce besides tourism, which signifies the global significance of the project. While granting its approval to the project, the Standing Committee of the National Board of Wildlife(NBWL) put a restriction that the National Highway Authority of India will not carry out construction during the flood period from June to October, as animal migration towards safer high areas of the Karbi Anglong foothills on the southern boundary of the national park peaks during the annual flood season. The regulator also put a restriction on carrying out any construction activity between sunset and sunrise, as construction after dusk will interfere with nocturnal life in Kaziranga. Restricted windows for construction activities will require mobilising the cutting-edge equipment and precision technology and engaging highly experienced engineers, technocrats, and skilled workers so that project target dates are not missed. Lessons must be learnt from the undue delay in the construction of the Jorhat-Majuli bridge over the Brahmaputra River after the construction company abandoned the work halfway, which speaks volumes about ignoring the crucial factors such as the availability of advanced technology and the expertise of the construction agencies engaged. Lack of financial discipline leading to delay in release of funds is another key factor behind time overrun and cost escalation in respect of many projects in the state and other Northeastern states. Putting in place a strong monitoring regime and reducing the interval of periodic evaluation will be critical for expeditious execution of the corridor project. The project to be implemented being located in one of the world’s ecologically important sites, any irreversible damage to the ecology of the landscape will pose a serious threat to the survival of many globally threatened and endangered species. This calls for special monitoring of the project execution by an independent body of wildlife and environment experts so that any deviation from the conditions imposed by the NBWL can be immediately brought to the notice of the central and state governments for intervention before further damage is caused to ecology. The benefits from the project will be enormous, but any damage to the ecological integrity of the landscape can never be compensated and runs the risk of erasing the conservation success story. This makes the elevated corridor project strikingly distinct from other highway or infrastructural projects such as flyovers and bridges or industrial motorways. The engineering marvel of the project will be measured not by the superstructures, the speed of work or the technology deployed but by the design choice that sets a new benchmark of conservation metrics in such infrastructure engineering. The elevated corridor project will be a test of reconciling connectivity with ecological intelligence and conservation.