IIT-Kharagpur and NHAI to Work Together for Creating Maintenance-free Highways

National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the leading technical institute of the country- IIT-Kharagpur, for a research project to develop technology for the construction of long lasting maintenance free highways in the country.

An official of NHAI said that IIT-Kharagpur will develop ‘panelled cement concrete pavements’ for highways of the country. This is a three years duration research project.

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National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has been facing several problems in regards to maintenance of the highways in India. Highways in the country are usually paved with bituminous material procured from refineries. It has been found from experience that these highways are prone to damage due to adverse climatic conditions such as hot weather and rain that is common in the country. They need frequent maintenance and repairing.

Now NHAI wants to overcome this problem. The road transport and highways ministry has announced a policy for the construction of concrete pavements, instead of traditional bituminous one, for all major highways. Concrete pavements have their longevity and maintenance-free life.

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For the construction of highways in the country, it requires a monolithic (in-situ) layer of cement concrete. It is normally 300 mm thick and laid continuously over the prepared surface. An innovation is required to optimise the design of concrete pavement in its traditional form so that it can facilitate faster construction at much cheaper cost and also consume less natural resources, thereby promoting Green Highways in the country.