The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is to use new materials and techniques in National Highway projects in the country on experimental basis to promote innovation and use of new technology in highway construction. The promoter of these new materials shall be required to bear the extra cost involved in the proposal.
As it is being the experimental projects, if any failure occurred in the trial reach, it would not be treated as the responsibility of the Implementing and executing agencies, the government has said. This endeavor of the Ministry would result in saving of our scarce natural resources like stone aggregates, bitumen etc. This may also result in saving in life cycle cost of road construction as compared to road construction using conventional materials. The use of latest equipments would also result in saving in construction period.
Road construction materials and technology has seen lot of improvements world over. Many new materials, techniques and equipments have been used in other countries successfully but the same needs to be tested under Indian conditions, traffic, rainfall, drainage, soil conditions etc. before being put to use in India.