KOCHI: Coir is all set to hit rural roads. Coir geotextiles, an indigenously developed coir product, will now be used as a reinforcement material on rural roads in eight states of India.
The work will be undertaken by the Coir Board in collaboration with the NITs and other research institutions of the respective states.
In each of the eight states, 50 km of roads constructed under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, will be taken up for the project.
The development comes closely on the heels of the accreditation of coir geotextiles by the National Rural Road Development Agency (NRRDA) and the Indian Road Congress (IRC).
Apart from reinforcement, the geotextile will reduce the damage of roads owing to waterlogging.
“Coir geotextile has two functions, reinforcement and drainage. The inter-linked network of coir fibres will absorb the water seeping into the roads and drain them away. This will prevent damage to roads owing to waterlogging. The soil will be first tested for its strength and accordingly we will lay the geotextiles,” said Sheela Evangeline, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, College of Engineering Thiruvananthapuram (CET), who is currently monitoring the project in south Kerala.
In Kerala, NIT Calicut and CET are the nodal institutions. Each of them will lay the geotextile on 25 km of rural roads.
During the course of the project, the performance of roads will be studied for a period of around three years. Based on these observations and reports, an Indian Road Congress Manual on the use of coir geotextiles will be prepared.
Once this is done, the geotextile can be directly used by the respective governments for road works without the assistance of the Coir Board or other nodal institutes.
“As of now, we are depending on the research institutes as nodal agencies. We are also training PWD engineers and workers in laying the roads. But once the manual is prepared, the state governments can use coir geotextiles independently. Moreover, it would not have to be restricted to rural roads,” said Umasankar Sarma, Director, Central Coir Research Institute.