O&M system mooted for upkeep of roads

Nirmaljit Singh, the member (technical) of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), has stressed the need for proper maintenance of the roads in the country.

Inaugurating the three-day national conference on 'Modern Cement Concrete and Bituminous Roads' organised by Gitam's College of Engineering, he suggested that operation and maintenance (O&M) contracts for national highways could be considered on a build-and-transfer (BoT) basis.

"The maintenance of rural roads, at least in the initial period of construction, could be part of the contract. With the increase in road travel, safety management requires special attention. Safety aspects too should be incorporated at the designing stage with correct and uniform practices," he observed.

"The government is spending Rs 60, 000 crore on rural roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana scheme. We should see that this technology be implemented in the construction of rural roads as well," he added.

"Consultancy firms are being engaged for preparation of detailed project reports and for supervision of construction. There has been a mixed performance of the consultants. We still have a long way to go in achieving excellence, and see that no major variations occur during the execution of projects. Then only we can complete the projects without any cost and time over runs," he said.

Singh said that the volume of road transportation in the country was growing at an average rate of about 10 per cent a year. "Within the overall road network, national highways play a key role from traffic consideration. With the present network of 58,112 km, NHAI accounts for 1.7 per cent of the total road network and carries approximately 40 per cent of the traffic," he informed.