City residents on way to get sustainable roads

PWD to renovate four city roads under milling and recycling technology

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, July 7: Literally, whenever preparation goes on to restore a dilapidated road after series of hue and cry, the residents of the locality get immense delight on seeing the arrival of equipments like the hydraulic excavators, motor graders, asphalt pavers, wheel loaders and the like. As, so far, these are the machineries used in renovating a dilapidated road in the state. Moreover, the popular standard is that the road level is raised to increase strength and shape when there is a renovation of existing roads.

Hence, as soon as the restoration comes to an end, the residents’ sense of fulfillment turns into a reason for suffering. The plinth level of houses in either sides of the road turns into stores of rain water and siltation due to the raised level of the roads and heightened drains. Accordingly, ground floors and A-Type houses are either renovated or abandoned.

However, in an innovative approach towards the city roads, keeping in mind intact road level and conservancy of ecology, the Public Works Department (PWD) has recently adopted the Milling and Recycling Technology. Under this technology, the PWD is gearing up for a pilot project to be implemented in four city roads – HB Road (1130 m), FC Road (663 m), MC Road (1150 m) and Kahilipara Lal Ganesh Road (955 m). Besides its own 650 m, HB Road also comprises 230 m of College Hostel Road and 250 m of Town Club Road. The PWD has earmarked a sum of Rs 783.43 lakh against the total length of 3.895 km.

Through the milling and recycling technology, the existing roads will be milled from 20 to 90 mm depth, at least 30% of the reclamation will be recycled and the dense bituminous concrete (DBM) will be 60 mm thick while bituminous concrete will be 30 mm thick. Moreover, this new technology will also have a better footpath and railing.

Inaugurating the first pilot project at HB Road on Saturday, PWD Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma informed the reporters that the renovation of proposed roads under the new technology will be completed within a month. “If the pilot project becomes successful, the technology will be applied in other parts of the state to build better and sustainable roads in the coming days,” he said. However, the Minister exclaimed that due to lack of contractors equipped with the new technology, the department concerned may receive tenders with higher cost. Therefore, he suggested the contractors to purchase the equipments by availing of loans from banks. During the inauguration, the PWD Minister was accompanied by Guwahati Development Department (GDD) Minister Siddhartha Bhattacharya, Minister of State for PWD Tapan Gogoi and PWD officials.