Nitin Gadkari Urged to Promote Innovation & Technology in Highways Sector

CSIR-Central Road Research Institute has organized a two-day international conference titled “Pavements and Computational Approaches” from 16-17 November 2018, at its premises in New Delhi. The objective of the conference is to deliberate upon advancements in pavement technology and road infrastructure engineering across the world, with special emphasis to the requirements of developing countries. Experts will discuss issues related to design and construction of pavements, material characterization, computational analysis and modelling. Deliberations during the conference are likely to bring out new thoughts on technology up-gradation and its successful implementation in the field.

Mr. Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways, Shipping, Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation has said in a video message that the mission of the Road Transport & highways Ministry is to build high quality roads at low costs. He called upon the experts at the conference to be ready to experiment with innovative technology, make all possible use of indigenous raw material including waste material, and promote pre-cast technology. He said the thrust of technological innovation should be on reducing costs and time for completion of projects without any compromise on quality.

The ageing infrastructure, road congestion, growth in heavy vehicle traffic, and insufficient maintenance have rendered the road transport inefficient in developing countries. Major challenges to the road network require a clear focus on enhanced pavement design, construction, performance evaluation, management and preservation for developing long-lasting, low-maintenance pavements. Within this milieu, enhanced and optimized solutions to the current problems have a key role in developing and preserving the road infrastructure. Dedicated R&D efforts are needed in the theme areas such as development of smart materials, innovative design and maintenance technologies, improved data analysis approaches for pavement performance and management, improvements in material behaviour characterization, use of soft computing tools for analysis and modelling of pavements.

The conference is being attended by nearly 250 delegates including young researchers, entrepreneurs, academicians and field engineers. There will be more than 45 technical presentations by the researchers/ engineers highlighting their work in different themes of the conference. The conference would be an ideal platform for sharing of ideas and networking with professionals and researchers from different countries and regions.