Concrete highways a possibility: Nath
The Hindustan Times, January 15, 2010, Page 24
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
New Delhi: Cement industry is now pitching for concrete highways in the light of road, transport and highways ministry’s plan to construct over 18,000 km greenfield expressways by 2032. Transport minister Kamal Nath on Thursday said the government may look at using cement for construction of these expressways.
“It would be appropriate to look at building expressways with cement concrete as these will be greenfield projects,” Nath said at a seminar — ‘Concrete Highway Projects’ — organised by the CII. He added concrete could also be used on road stretches where wear and tear is high.
Putting the case of cement concrete roads over bituminous ones, Sumit Banerjee, chairman of CII cement industry division and managing director of ACC Ltd, said 71,000 km of highways and expressways were in bitumen and only 40% of this conformed to quality standards. ‘‘Concrete roads have a life cycle of 50 years and also help save 15% in fuel consumption. A combination of fly-ash based concrete roads is environment-friendly and has a 50% longer life cycle and is a solution for today’s need,’’ he said.
Nath said that if the highway development programme looked at incremental usage of concrete then the industry in India would have to consider whether the current capacity would be able to meet the additional demand from the road projects. Already about 10% of the highways covered under the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) has been cement concrete stretches.
Road and transport secretary, Brahm Dutt said that the NHAI faced many problems so far as construction of concrete stretches was concerned. ‘‘The industry did not honour its commitment on price and quality of cement and this was a deterrent to the development of concrete projects and projects could not take off,’’ he added.
The Hindustan Times, January 15, 2010, Page 24
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
New Delhi: Cement industry is now pitching for concrete highways in the light of road, transport and highways ministry’s plan to construct over 18,000 km greenfield expressways by 2032. Transport minister Kamal Nath on Thursday said the government may look at using cement for construction of these expressways.
“It would be appropriate to look at building expressways with cement concrete as these will be greenfield projects,” Nath said at a seminar — ‘Concrete Highway Projects’ — organised by the CII. He added concrete could also be used on road stretches where wear and tear is high.
Putting the case of cement concrete roads over bituminous ones, Sumit Banerjee, chairman of CII cement industry division and managing director of ACC Ltd, said 71,000 km of highways and expressways were in bitumen and only 40% of this conformed to quality standards. ‘‘Concrete roads have a life cycle of 50 years and also help save 15% in fuel consumption. A combination of fly-ash based concrete roads is environment-friendly and has a 50% longer life cycle and is a solution for today’s need,’’ he said.
Nath said that if the highway development programme looked at incremental usage of concrete then the industry in India would have to consider whether the current capacity would be able to meet the additional demand from the road projects. Already about 10% of the highways covered under the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) has been cement concrete stretches.
Road and transport secretary, Brahm Dutt said that the NHAI faced many problems so far as construction of concrete stretches was concerned. ‘‘The industry did not honour its commitment on price and quality of cement and this was a deterrent to the development of concrete projects and projects could not take off,’’ he added.
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