BENGALURU: Inaugurating the much-anticipated rapid road project on Thursday, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said that officials should find ways to reduce its cost, check for feasibility in 15 days, and submit a report. He inaugurated the road at Binnamangala junction connecting 100 Feet Road Indiranagar, Old Madras Road and NGEF. The BBMP has undertaken work on the 375-m stretch on a pilot basis at CV Raman Nagar, and they are using the rapid road method instead of the usual white topping works.
“Whenever road development project is taken up, it creates problem for motorists, but in this technology, the work will be done faster. In white topping, the project takes time, traffic has to be diverted, resulting in snarls. With white topping work, it is difficult to break for other emergency works like digging. In this new technology, under which precast slabs are prepared at a different location and joined together, traffic flow can be normalised soon,” Bommai said.
Over 20 tonnes of vehicles should be allowed on this road to assess its effectiveness, he said, adding that a report on the impact should be filed in two weeks, including precast slab strength, quality and cost effectiveness before the approval is given.
Regarding the rapid road project, BBMP engineer has earlier informed that precast tensioning concrete (laying of readymade slabs and connecting by steel cables of ether side and joints of each slab) can be fixed using cranes, and a stretch of 150m can be fixed in a day or two. The roads are expected to last at least four decades as per UltraTech Cement Limited which is the technology partner of BBMP in this pilot project, said an official.
A Palike engineer said that for 1 km of road, rapid road work is likely to cost around Rs9.3 crore which is over 30 per cent compared to white topping project.