Critical Review Points on the Design and Construction of Concrete Roads in India

  J.B. Sengupta, Scientist, Dinesh Ganvir, Scientist, and Dr. Renu Mathur, Head, Rigid Pavements Division, Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi

Introduction

The revival of the cement industry in the country coupled with other factors that have boosted the prospects of constructing road projects in the country has made the transportation engineers to sit together, and re-orient their pavement options towards concrete pavements. So far India had preferred the option of flexible pavements due to certain compelling reasons. Most obvious among them were lower initial cost, amenability to stage construction and scarcity of cement. But now the country is on the verge of accomplishing highly ambitious road modernization programme which ncludes the construction of expressways and four laning projects. This calls for a re-appraisal of the past strategies. The country’s road system has got a fillip and boost due to the recently introduced National Highway Development Programme (NHDP) and Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) provoking a profound paradigmatic shift towards the construction of concrete roads. In this context, cement concrete roads have a major role to play. The know-how and the current state of knowledge is very minimal since large scale projects involving concrete road constructions are still in infancy stage in India. There are many compelling issues at stake in the design and construction aspects of rigid pavements in India. This paper addresses few of them.