Ministry has issued guidelines for providing rainwater harvesting, says Gadkari
Twenty-two Greenfield Highways, five Expressways comprising length of 2,485-km with cost of Rs.163,350 crore and 17 Access Controlled Highways comprising length of 5,816 km with cost of Rs.192,876 crore, have been envisaged for development, Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on 6 April 2022.
Three sections of the Delhi Mumbai Expressway i.e. Delhi–Dausa-Lalsot (Jaipur – 214 km), Vadodara–Ankelshwar (100 km) and Kota–Ratlam Jhabua (245 km) are planned for completion by March 2023.
Out of 8,301 km length, 4,946-km is in different stages of bidding and DPRs.
Blackspots are identified for undertaking immediate short term measures for mitigation and long term measures for permanent rectification.
As per information available with the Ministry, short term measures have been taken on almost all Blackspots and long term measures have been taken on 3,385 Blackspots up to February 2022.
The Ministry has taken following steps to rectify all Blackspots through its implementing agencies i.e. NHAI, NHIDCL and NH wings of State PWDs:
To carry out all stage (Design, construction and operation) road safety audits for all National Highways;
Provision of Rumble strips or bar markings at the approaches of junctions on NHs;
Provision of Speed Limit signs at desired locations of NHs network;
Provision of Speed breakers and associated signage on side roads;
Provision of amber beacons for traffic approaching a junction as per IRC;
Installation of Crash barriers on High embankments and in hilly terrain;
Encouraging engineers for certificate course in road safety audit for which MOUs are signed with IITs and other leading technical education and research institutions;
Developed a Blackspot MIS portal where details of all blackspots, IDs, photographs, and rectification status and post rectification feedback shall be collected and monitored.
The Ministry has taken several initiatives to promote use of state-of-the-art and green technology in construction of National Highways, Gadkari said.
These include, use for waste materials, by-products, organic materials such as fly-ash, slag, crumb rubber, modified bitumen, waste plastic, recycled aggregates, geosynthetics, jute, coir, etc. and processes like recycling, cement treated sub-base, base, soil stabilisation, etc.
The Ministry has issued guidelines for providing rainwater harvesting and artificial recharging on all the buildings and structures such as toll plaza building, wayside amenities, grade separated structures etc. which are to be developed as part of the project corridor.
The locations and design of such structures are based on the rainfall intensity and geo-technical strata and also the depth of ground water table and norms issued by Central Ground Water Board.
The provision of rain water harvesting and artificial recharging are made part of the scope of highway implementation and upgradation projects and implemented by contractor and concessionaire, he said. fiinews.com
