The New Indian Express 05.01.2012
Soon, drive on plastic roads
CHENNAI: Fulfilling the government’s major announcement to improve city roads, the Corporation on Wednesday began its ambitious project of laying plastic roads at Lakshmanan Street near G N Chetty Road. Speaking to reporters after launching the project, Mayor Saidai S Duraisamy said that the inclusion of plastic in road-laying, would increase its lifespan and also help the civic body to dispose of plastic waste systematically.
During the launch, Vasudevan, principal, Madurai Thyagaraja College, explained the procedure used to lay plastic roads.
According
to official sources, the civic body has planned to lay about 371 km of
roads in the city using plastic at an estimated cost of `110 crore.
At
another event, Corporation Commissioner PWC Davidar vowed to provide
motorists with a good experience on city roads, and warned contractors
to stick to quality and accountability while laying roads.
He said
that 36 contractors were served with notices to complete rectification
work on roads they re-laid in the past year. “If they fail to come
forward to do the rectification of potholes and craters on roads before
January 14, the Corporation will complete the works and the amount spent
on the work will be deducted from ‘Defect Liability Period fund’ of the
contractors concerned,” Davidar said.
Last year alone, the
Corporation re-laid 241 roads, covering about 142 km, at a cost of `62
crore. After a recent inspection, it has emerged that 112 of these roads
had potholes and other defects.
At the gathering of Corporation
engineers and contractors during a lecture on ‘Relaying bituminous roads
using waste plastic - Implementation and methods’, the Commisioner sent
out a strong warning to the engineers too, saying road specifications,
like paving slopes for easy flow of rainwater and proper mix of bitumen,
had to be assessed properly.
