Technical Inspection of Some Rural Roads and Suggestive Measures for Improvement

Introduction

An effective and efficient infrastructure system particularly the road transportation network has become very crucial in our country for high economic growth and its sustenance in future. Owing to the recent emphasis on road construction by Government of India, the road network in our country has grown remarkably from about 1.4 million km in 1981 to over 4.2 million km currently. The entire road network in India is classified into five distinct categories from the viewpoint of their operation, management and administration. These five categories are – National Highways, State Highways, Major District Roads, Other District Roads and Village Roads. Other District Roads, and Village Roads combined together are usually referred to as 'Rural Roads'. This paper presents an appraisal of quality of road building materials used and construction quality achieved for some of the rural roads through technical inspections undertaken by CRRI. This work was carried out on a total of 41 roads spread across three states.

Methodology of Technical Inspection

The methodology for technical inspections adopted under this study included visiting each road, carrying out visual pavement surface condition survey, making three test pits on a road and determining the thickness and insitu density of various pavement layers, retrieval of road construction materials from different pavement layers for further laboratory evaluation at CRRI followed by comparison of test results with contract specifications. A total of three test pits per road were excavated, since the length of majority of these roads was found to be less than three km.