‘Plastic roads’ withstand rain fury

‘Plastic roads’ withstand rain fury
Wednesday October 3 2007 08:54 IST

EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

Smooth sailing for vehicles on the plastic-reinforced M G Road in Bangalore.

BANGALORE: Heavy rains this season have laid bare the BBMP’s claims of being rain-prepared. The most marked problem today is the poor condition of city roads which the Palike had resurfaced.

After a few downpours, the roads have numerous pot holes and craters, making motorists’ life miserable.

But 18 plastic roads in the city have withstood the rain.

They are MG Road, Airport Road, Indranagar 80-ft Road, Dickenson Road and Jeevan Bheema Nagara. The rationale of using plastics for roadmaking was to put the nondegradable stuff to good use.

Speaking to Express Engineer-in-Chief A K Gopalaswamy said that the plastic coating is damageresistant. The Karnataka Land Army Corporation (KLAC) did the work. ‘‘Under a pilot project in 2006, the plastic road surfacing was done on 18 roads. We want to do so for other roads as well because plastic asphalting is costeffective and is 30 per cent more durable than the tarred roads,’’ he said.

There is a plan before the BBMP to lay other City roads with plastic. After November all the main roads in the city will be asphalted using plastic, he said.

Meanwhile, the move of former BBMP commissioner K Jairam to penalise the engineers concerned where the roads under their care had developed damage without valid reason seems to have been washed away with the rain. Nobody talks of it now.