Building a robust and resilient road infrastructure
is essential for long term socio-economic development of the country. Road infrastructure is required to provide faster mobility together with safety,
logistic efficiency and user conveniences and it should also be sustainable in the long run. Conventionally, road construction is associated with depletion of natural resources
such as stone, fertile soil, sand,
etc., felling of trees, emission of green-house
gases, etc. Resolving these trade-offs are essential to achieve sustainable development.
To cite one example, one lane-km of road construction requires
20,000 ton (approx.) of good quality
stones. Further, it is estimated
that construction of every lane-km
of NH generates
CO2 emissions[1] to the tune of 24–30 tonne per year. Under PM Vision for Green Future
& Net Zero, India has set ambitious targets of achieving
''net zero” by 2070. Therefore, to
conserve the limited reserves of natural resources as well as minimize emission of greenhouse gases, MORTH under the visionary
leadership of Hon’ble
Prime Minister and able
leadership of Hon’ble Minister, Road Transport & Highways has strategized its planning, design,
construction and maintenance of highways based on the following principles:
·
Optimization of design
using new materials, processes
and technology resulting in
material savings, longer life,
accelerated construction, etc.
·
Minimize consumption of
natural resources
·
Focus on locally available
materials
·
Use of eco-friendly alternate
material
·
Reduce, reuse and recycle
of waste materials
·
Conservation of water,
soil, flora & fauna, etc.
·
Adoption of green construction practices
·
Use of efficient and environmental friendly construction equipment and machineries
·
Conservation of energy
·
Landscaping and plantation
·
Prevention and control of emission of GHGs, water pollution, ambient
noise level, soil erosion & pollution, handling and disposal of volatile, solid & liquid
waste
·
Evaluation based on life-cycle costing
A few landmark achievements in use
of such materials, technology,
processes in different National
Highway projects to bring about sustainable development can be summarised as under:
·
Ultra-High Performance Fiber Reinforced Concrete
(UHPFRC) for long span bridge
(65 Nos. of bridges constructed / under construction with UHPFRC).
·
Processed Steel Slag-(2.6 million MT used)
·
Waste Plastic
in bituminous mixes (2830km road constructed)
·
Inert material
of Municipal Landfill
(2.4 million MT used)
·
Bamboo Crash Barrier
(8.5 km)
·
Transplantation of uprooted trees (70,000 Nos.)
·
Materials/technology such
as soil stabilisation, precast
concrete elements, high performance bituminous mixes, various types of geosynthetics, natural mats like coir/jute, recycle of existing bituminous pavements, full depth reclamation, reuse of tunnel mg/landslide materials, use of construction & demolition waste, bio-bitumen, fiber reinforced polymer rebars in replacement of steel bars for reinforced concrete, etc. are being used in different NH projects to varying scale.
Typically, 135 km long Eastern Peripheral Expressway developed by NHAI
can be considered as a model case for green highway project
as it minimizes carbon footprint in manifold ways:
·
Generation of Solar Power: Capacity of 4 MW.
· Drip Irrigation for plants
·
Rain water harvesting has been provided at every 500 m interval.
·
About 12 million cum of fly ash has been used.
·
Extensive plantation: 2.6 lakh trees
planted
Green National Highways Corridor
Projects (GNHCP) being implemented with assistance of World Bank is also another example of use of sustainable technologies. Seven stretches of National Highways
involving 23 construction packages
having total length of 783 km have been taken up under GNHCP. Green materials/technology
such as coir/jute mat, hydroseeding, interlinked chain mesh with green strips, bamboo
plantation, vetiver grass, hedge brush
layering, recycling, etc. are being used in the said project.
MoRTH has been continuously
striving to evaluate the performance of such materials and technology measures
in terms of saving in carbon footprints, strength, durability and
serviceability. While the performance of materials, processes, technology now
being used or attempted to use need to be consolidated, continued efforts are
being made to identify and develop new ones in a committed manner.
(A PIB feature)
