Cement concrete roads can perform better than bituminous stretches, the New Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Oscar Fernandes has said. He has set the agenda of constructing ‘maintenance free highways’ and a mechanism for quick fix of potholes and damages of road stretches. The Minister has asked his officials and engineers to come out with proposals for this.
The Minister said though cement concrete roads were more capital intensive, they would have long life cycle. We can actually save a lot of expense that we need to maintain bituminous road. But I am aware that the performance of concrete roads depends on the construction quality and proper project implementation, he added.
Fernandes also said that the focus of road building should be on creating adequate provision for quicker discharge of water from the surface. ‘I have given a slogan of ‘rain drain, drain rain’. Since we know accumulation of water is the biggest enemy for any bituminous stretch we have to deal with this. Planning and execution of road projects have to be upgraded,’ Fernandes said.
The Minister claimed that the ministry is close to the target of constructing 20 km a day. Adding that he would just take forward the work put by his predecessors in the past four years. In 2011-12, India built 16 km highway per day and last year it increased to 17 km, the Minister said. On a mechanism to carry out patchworks immediately after any stretch is damaged, Fernandes said there could be ‘pre-made’ patches.
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