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| Edited By: Ashutosh Kumar |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 30, 2018, 02:20 AM IST
The Union road transport and highways ministry is considering use of cement to construct greenfield expressways, potentially offering a mega opportunity to domestic cement companies.
Highways are conventionally laid using bitumen, a by-product of the petroleum sector.
“Construction of concrete roads has to be location-specific. Concrete roads can be used for developing greenfield expressways, as they will be new alignments,” said road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath at a seminar on concrete highway projects in the capital on Thursday.
No cement expressway or highway has yet been made in India. It’s limited only to city roads in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh.
M Murli, director-general of National Highway Builders Association estimates that using cement would jack up the bill by 30-50% compared with bitumen roads.
Bitumen costs about Rs 40,000 per tonne, while cement costs Rs 24,300. “But steel, sand etc and curing raise the costs substantially,” he said.
“Expressways using concrete, therefore, is not feasible,” Murli said.
The ministry is planning to set up an expressway network spanning 18,937 km by 2022. Nath, however, said no bitumen road will be upgraded using cement.
“Cement roads have a major role to play in our road-building programme. We need better technology and practices,” said Nath.
Outlining the advantages of having cement roads, ACC managing director Sumit Bannerjee said these roads are durable, maintenance free for 20-30 years and have a life of 50 years.
Concrete pavements have proven to outlive their design life in a number of countries. In the US, the life of such roads is more than 40 years, while in Belgium it is more than 30 years. In Australia such roads have lasted 40 years.
Transport secretary Brahm Dutt, however, said earlier efforts to tie up with the cement industry could not bear fruits due to lack of quality compliance, among others.
“They did not supply quality cement and price commitment and timeline were also a concern,” he said.
