Sustainable Pavements in India The Time To Start Is Now
Prof. Rajib Basu Mallick, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA, USA Prof. A. Veeraragavan, Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai.
Pavements – A Costly Necessity
The quality of roads dictate the economy of a country and hence the quality of our lives. In India, road transport handles more than 60% of the freight and more than 80% of the passenger traffic. Roads are vital for the transport of goods and passengers. Village roads are critical for the basic minimum connectivity for the upliftment of the social and economical condition of the rural people. Such roads provide access to employment, means of transporting agricultural produce and access to health care and social services.
Realizing the need for good road infrastructure, the Indian government has embarked on a vigorous road building effort – and investing `1,20,000 crore per annum. In the next five years, $60 billion will be invested to build 35,000 km of roads. The roads that are being built now will be ready for maintenance and rehabilitation in the next five to ten years. Some lessons can be learnt from the US highway system, which is a mature system, and most of the work in the recent past and at present is on maintenance and rehabilitation, rather than on new construction. Because of soaring material costs and budget shortfalls, there is a huge backlog in maintenance and rehabilitation of pavements, leading to the issue of sustainability of the maintenance of road assets that have been created by huge investments. It should be noted that in addition to the ongoing new construction, in the next five years, a significant amount of work will also be needed for the maintenance and rehabilitation of the new pavements. The combined work will need (in addition to money) a massive amount of materials and energy.
