During a mid-February 2020 program on ‘Building pothole free roads in Indian cities’, organized by Indian Concrete Institute (ICI), Dinakar Pasla, Associate Professor (Civil), School of Infrastructure-Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), said that whitetopping is the answer to potholed roads and crores of rupees spent for repair and restoration work of the roads every year in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. The process in which pavement quality concrete (PQC) is overlayed on an existing bituminous pavement—an extra layer for its restoration—increases the life-cycle of a road and reduces maintenance cost apart from addressing the issue of potholes.
“Asphalt pavements are usually damaged during monsoons, and require maintenance every year. Around Rs 40,000 crore is spent in the country every year from the exchequer for their repair and restoration. The issue can be addressed if a layer of PQC is placed on the asphalt pavement. This will give a sustainable solution that would last for at least 15 to 20 [to 30 or 40] years and save thousands of crores [each] year on repairing roads and filling potholes,” Pasla said.
The life-cycle cost of these roads are much less compared to roads surfaced with asphalt, said Pasla, adding if the concrete layer is replaced with supplementary cementing materials such as fly ash generated from thermal power plants and slag from steel plants, this will reduce its cost further by 30% to 40%.
In a Rising Kashmir online news article by author Muhammad Nazim Bhat, B.E.-Civil Engineering, brief history of roads is given, starting with the fact that the invention of roads came into existence when man started walking on his feet. He creatively tells how early man used to follow paths carved by animals for traveling, hunting, and battle—that were natural, temporary, unpaved, and muddy in nature. After the invention of the wheel, good roads became necessary, and the condition of roads improved to some extent. With the advancement of technology, new inventions and discoveries developed into constructing hard crusted surfaces over the natural soil for the purpose of providing a stable and even surface “pavement” for vehicles—supporting and distributing the wheel loads and providing adequate wearing surfaces.
The main purpose of providing pavement is to provide a stable, non-yielding surface for movement of heavy vehicles. With increase in life standards and scientists’ research works, the standard of roads also increased proportionately. Bitumen/asphalt flexible pavements came into existence. They are built up in several layers, with soil material/“sub grade” beneath, over the sub base, base layer, then the top layer/”surfacing” which is usually of bitumen/asphalt in developing countries like India. These types of roads are cheap, comfortable, easy to construct, and less time consuming—can be used within a few hours after construction. These roads can resist very small tensile stress because of limited rigidity, but any deformation of sub grade results in the corresponding change in the pavement surface. These are also called fair weather roads because they can’t withstand the harsh weather conditions like heavy rain fall, snowfall, hot and humid weather.
India is a developing country and roads play an important role in the development of any country—these road pavements cover almost every part of India. Roads are considered the life-line of any country. They are used in transportation, exchange of goods and services. Their condition is more important during war times in which their use is to serve for transportation of troops, weapons, goods, and a variety of supplies and things. Among various modes of transportation, roadways are considered first among all these modes of transportation for their movement. India is spending a lot on the development of roadways, but the present condition of the roads in the country seems to be in the worst case scenario, except for a few national and international more important roads.
In Kashmir, most roads are in a state of failure—mostly affected by snowfall, precipitation, and sub-zero temperatures. This causes freezing and thawing of roads resulting in cracks, pot holes, fissures and other road failures. Improper camber without considering codal provisions and specifications (Researchers’ and engineers’ guides showing standard and quantity of materials to be used; proper slope thickness of pavement; sub grade, base sub grade to be provided; and construction guidelines) lead to failure of pavement. So, proper follow up of rules and norms according to specifications is necessary for the long life of the roads.
Absence of effective drainage system in the roads which drain out the storm water from the roads is another cause:
• Few places have somewhat of a drain system
• They are defunct—not in working conditions to carry water
• Failure of the drain system is mainly due to choking, insufficient capacity, improper slope, poor materials used
• Proper drainage system—working efficiently on main roads and small streets is necessary to save India’s roads from damage
• Proper drainage systems save India’s roads from deterioration by removing storm water
• Proper drainage systems carry out waste water from households and industries, thus preventing health hazards
In 2019, one of the most serious drainage failures occurred in the Srinagar city center-Lal chowk which almost flooded the maximum area of Lal chowk, especially the Ghanta Ghar area. If this is the situation of the main city, then the urban places would be worse. Administrative and technical causes of road failure have been corruption among Government departments, negligence of engineers and contractors, and failure of competent authorities—not checking the standards of constructed roads according to guidelines and provisions. Contractors have violated the standard clearance of bills by neglecting prior inspections. Most citizens wash their cars along road side, leading to water accumulation over roads to the defunct drainage system, causing freezing and thawing to the wearing coat. High moisture content plays an large role in deterioration of bitumen’s pavements, decreasing the bonding capability of bitumen with the aggregates, thus resulting in segregation of aggregates from the bitumen … leading to road pavement failure. Another contributor to the overtaxed defunct drainage systems is the rainwater from the roofs of homes sloping to roads, running off to the drains.
Recently, the Indian Government took excellent initiatives by withholding bill payments to contractors for at least 3 years, only clearing their bills after inspection authorities are satisfied with the condition and quality of roads. This will surely prevent the contractors from using sub-standard material in road construction, and refrain from poor construction practices. Society also owns responsibility toward the care of roads which are public properties. They should question and inquire about standard of road materials used during their construction and also inform the concerned authorities about any mischievous activities being carried out by the construction agencies. Citizens should also refrain from those activities that cause harm to the roads. Slopes of roofs must not be towards the road, but if circumstances only warrant sloping toward road, then proper drainage traps and channels (Parnells) must be provided so that the rainwater is properly drained to suitable area/underground drainage systems.
In countries like Germany, Britain, America, and China, social and political will have transformed their condition from developing to developed nations. They first eradicated the roots of corruption from their country. Then they analyzed their problems and attempted to readdress them through scientific and logical methods. With roads, researchers found that bitumen adhesion with aggregates is very sensitive to the moisture content of the sub grade, and since they couldn’t control the moisture content of subgrade, they found an alternative to this menace of frequent road deterioration wherever necessary—RIGID PAVEMENTS/all-weather pavements which can withstand harsh weather conditions.
These are made of cement concrete, as concrete layer is quite strong,
sub base may not be required. Rigid pavements:
• High flexural strength
• Resistant to high tensile stresses
• Capable of bridging small depressions in the sub grade
• High life span
• Less failure
• Easy to repair
They may be costly in construction, but are cheaper in the long run, as they need less or no maintenance.
At last, in order to prevent our roads from frequent deterioration and save public money, first we have to completely eradicate the evil of corruption in its bud. Second, invest more and more in research based practices and methods, use proper codal norms and standards during construction. Strict vigil by the enforcement agencies regarding the standard and quality of work being done by the contractors, etc., is necessary to prevent the mischievous contractors and officials from wasting the public money. And last, society needs to be at forefront in highlighting the mismanagement, ill-practices and non adherence to the norms by various agencies before appropriate platforms.
For The New Indian Express News article titled “Whitetopping for potholed roads”, please go to: www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/2020/feb/13/whitetopping-for-potholed-roads-2102648.html
For the Rising Kashmir online news article titled “Our Crumbling Roads”, please go to: risingkashmir.com/news/our-crumbling-roads
Map of India: www.mapsofindia.com