GCCI has written to Union Minister Nitin Gadkari asking him to resolve the poor construction of concrete roads on the national highways. The issues raised were of surface quality, banking, levelling and drainage.
This is indeed a good move by the GCCI, but why did they not also list the potholes on the new Mandovi bridge? Did they think it is the baby of IIT Chennai to resolve the same and that too at the cost of the State government?
Proper roads today take into consideration a number of modern requirements which the GCCI seems unaware of. Microplastics in the air come from poor road material. Road noise is also a major problem and proper material at the design stage alone can reduce the same.
National highways produce even more noise due to the speeding vehicles and must be preferably lower than the terrain to ensure residents along the highways roads are not subjected to noise pollution.
GCCI must do a comparison of these new Highways with foreign ones on all aspects. Roads don’t just mean a pathway for speeding vehicles. It is not rocket science to know what material is dumped on the highways just to save time and declare thousands of kilometers built in record time!
