Micro way to a smooth ride

Delhi public works department (PWD) minister Rajkumar Chauhan on Tuesday kick-started the project to strengthen the city’s roads using two alternate technologies — micro-surfacing and recycling.

Delhi will have smoother and more durable roads before Commonwealth Games 2010.

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Delhi public works department (PWD) minister Rajkumar Chauhan on Tuesday kick-started the project to strengthen the city’s roads using two alternate technologies — micro-surfacing and recycling.

These technologies, said Chauhan, will not only add more years to the life of these roads but will also make the surface of these roads smoother.

PWD is also re-carpeting some stretches of roads using waste plastic.

Known as plastic-bitumen roads, these roads also last longer than the usual bitumen-mix roads. Shredded pieces (1-2 mm) of waste plastic are mixed with hot bitumen, giving the road more strength.

PWD engineers said work is on to re-carpet about 80 km of roads in east and south Delhi using the plastic-bituminous mix. While the life of a normal road, carpeted with hot bituminous-mix technology, is 4-5 years, roads constructed by micro-surfacing, recycling and use of plastic-bitumen mix add at least 2-3 more years to the road surface, Chauhan said.

“A stretch of Mehrauli-Badarpur road was re-strengthened last year using recycling technology and it has given very good results,” a senior PWD engineer said, adding it will be used on stretches with comparatively lesser traffic.