Bhubaneswar: Deteriorating road infrastructure including roads riddled with potholes has a significant bearing on the residents’ lifestyle. Crucial junctions and stretches like Kalpana Square and Nalco Nagar road, to name a few, are the examples that give unpleasant travel experience to City commuters. Keeping this in mind, experts have suggested for adopting ‘Whitetopping’ technology which is durable and sustainable in nature and facilitates an enhanced commuter experience.
Whitetopping is considered the most viable and sustainable solution with pothole free roads during its entire lifecycle of over 20 years. Whitetopping is covering of an existing asphalt pavement with a layer of Portland cement concrete. Whitetopping are of several types depending on the thickness of the concrete layer and whether the layer is bonded to the asphalt substrate.
The Whitetopping technology has gained significant public acceptance due to its environmental and economic benefits. Whitetopping requires much less maintenance and involves much less frequent lane closures of road, as compared to bituminous surfaces. Possessing a life span of over 20 years, with minimum repair required, Whitetopping solution has been implemented in major cities across India and has proved to be a significant game changer for ensuring pothole-free roads.
Across India, over 1,000 km of Whitetopping projects have been successfully completed, including construction in major cities such as Mumbai, Thane, Nagpur, Pune, Bengaluru, Kanpur among others.
Addressing a workshop on ‘Buildling Pothole-free roads in Indian Cities’, Dinakar Pasla, Associate Professor (Civil), School of Infrastructure, IIT-Bhubaneswar, here, Wednesday, said, “Indian roads’ reputation for being riddled with potholes has been a constant problem for the state and city authorities. In Whitetopping, there is a solution that will not only solve the perennial pothole problem but also sustain its quality for over 20 years and be a catalyst for economic growth in cities with lesser burden on natural resources.” The technology will be used in trail basis in Bhubaneswar soon. “For this, we had talked with the government and very soon will hold a meeting regarding this,” he added.
Kali Kalyan Maharana, Deputy Manager (Engg), Bhubaneswar Smart City Ltd, said, “Whitetopping has proved to be the most apt and easiest of the solutions available for repair & rehabilitation of damaged bitumen roads. Thus, it ensures safe and comfortable commute apart from being economic and durable with minimum maintenance.”