Towards Stable Roads

Ben James Highlights the Need to Stabilise Soil or Aggregate to Construct Better Roads and Optimally Use Scarce Resources in India.

Indian road infrastructure is undergoing phenomenal growth for the past 15 years and will continue to grow at higher rates in coming years under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. Accordingly, the requirement of soil or aggregate for infrastructure has increased and reached a level where availability of basic materials has become a constraint on development. Non-availability of suitable soil and aggregates has made projects unviable and cost-prohibitive. Some projects are running into significant overruns as a direct consequence. All these factors have delayed several important projects, and in some cases, state governments are even denying development in certain aggregate-deficient regions. This scarcity will increase further considering environmental conservation and restriction on mining in several states. Although aggregate scarcity is a pan-India problem, it is most pronounced in northern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Punjab and Haryana.

It is public knowledge that the ministry is considering making the use of road recycling (reusing in-situ materials) technologies mandatory for a significant percentage of road development in these states. This will help increase the speed of construction and close the gap on Minister Nitin Gadkari’s target of 40 km of National Highways per day. Also, India has an existing road network of over 4,689,842 km, the second largest in the world. Most of these roads are in poor condition and need rehabilitation and constant maintenance. The government is also widening and extending these existing highways and state expressways.

Stabilising soil