After keeping off the vehicle flow for five days resulting in traffic jams and slowdowns, the GHMC’s experiment with the thoroughfare alongside the State Secretariat seemingly has not yielded the desired results.
The road between Indira Gandhi’s statue on Necklace Road and Telugu Talli crossroads, taken up for the ‘Full Depth Recycling’ with cement and chemical stabilisation, has left a grimy, unequal surface. Officials are left wondering if it needs a fresh layer of BT mix for smooth ride.
As of now, the road needs to be constantly sprinkled with water to prevent commuters from inhaling cement dust.
“Every two to three hours, we are deploying water tankers to cure the road. After two days of curing, we will have to get the road swept thoroughly, to see the results,” said a senior official from the Corporation, not sounding too sure about the success.
It was estimated that curing of the 1.7 kilometre road would consume 1.5 lakh litres of water.
Vehicle riders who drove on the road after it was opened for traffic since Wednesday evening found it squishy under the wheels, and much inferior to the BT road.“I traveled on the road during the night, and it almost looked as though the BT road had been washed away. There was dust rising from the dry portions,” said Mohd. Zaheeruddin, a two-wheeler rider.
About fifty kilograms of cement was used per square metre of the road, apart from 1.8 kilograms of chemical.
GHMC was offered demonstration of German technology in road construction by a private firm, and this particular strip of road was chosen for the same. Without use of fresh bitumen, the company offered chemically treated cement road with 10 years of life.
As per the process, the existing BT road was dug up and mixed with layers of cement and chemical compound specially ordered from Germany, after which the mix was compacted using rollers.
The quality of the road was touted as similar to white-topped ones.
“The company representatives said similar use of the technology in Krishnapatnam had taken seven months to stabilise. We are hoping that the road will be better in one month’s time. If not, we may have to lay a fresh layer of BT mix over it,” the official said.
