Kamal Nath casts in concrete plan for laying fresh roads

NEW DELHI: Transport minister Kamal Nath on Thursday said the government may look at using cement for constructing over 18,000 km of expressways in the country. At present, most of the road network in India is bitumen.

“It would be appropriate to look at (building) expressways with cement, concrete as these will be greenfield projects ,” Mr Nath told reporters.

He said concrete can also be used on roads, where wear and tear is high. However, cement would not be used for upgrading the existing bitumen roads.

“We are not going to use cement where there are bitumen roads already,” he said. The proposal, if implemented, would provide a big boost to the cement companies.

ACC Ltd managing director Sumit Banerjee, while delivering the inaugural address at the seminar, said concrete roads are durable, maintenance-free for 20-30 years and have a life of up to 50 years. “Concrete roads offer 15-20 % economy in fuel consumption and 10-15 % in vehicle running costs compared to bitumen ones,” Mr Banerjee said.

The construction costs of cement roads is, however, more than that of bitumen roads, but in the long-term they recover the savings. Some of municipalities have started building cement roads in a limited way.

Mr Nath also said he has called a meeting of all state transport ministers next month to look at amending the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, though he did not give specifics of the draft amendments . He was speaking at a seminar organised by industry chamber CII on Concrete Highway Projects.

The Act defines norms for speed limits and permissible loads that trucks can carry, among others.