A new and effective technology of manufacturing cold mix at home plants has helped in managing the headache of refilling potholes; the frequency has been decreased by 75 per cent. This, in turn, has also resulted in the mixture being produced less.
Every year, around 11,000 tonne of hot mix is prepared in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) asphalt plant at Worli. It however, did not bring much change to the pockmarked roads of the city. After adopting this new cold mix technique and on the basis of 2018's experience, the plant will make only 1,500 tonne of the cold mix for the rainy season and that will suffice, the civic officials claimed.
The BMC has its own hot mix plant at Worli, which produces around 11,000 tonne of hot mix to fill potholes every year. Most of this filling was produced and used in the monsoon season. The BMC officers said that over 6,000 tonne of this would be used in the monsoon season and over 4,000 tonne would be saved for the dry months.
However, in case of the cold mix, the city authority prepared to manufacture 10,000 tonne. After starting to use the mixture, it realised only 1,000 tonne was used during the monsoon season.
Therefore, this year, the civic body has limited its production to only 1,500 tonne. " The hot mix failed to fix potholes in the rainy season. So, we had to fix the same pothole five to six times in a row. It requires 90 per cent compression whereas cold mix requires only 10 per cent compression and it easily settles in watery areas. Hardly 10 per cent of the manufactured cold mix was used to solve the issue," an official from the BMC's road department said.
"For the dry stretch of weather this year, we manufactured 600 tonnes but not even 100 tonnes was unused. Now the production of cold mix for monsoon is on and we will be prepare only 1,500 tonnes of which 1,000 will mostly be used," said an officer related to cold mix production.
BMC officers are even thinking of asking road contractors to use a cold mix instead of the hot mix they use to fill potholes during the defect liability period. A contractor is supposed to look after roads in the period of three to five years depending on tar or cement road that has been surfaced. The cold mix will be sold by the BMC to such contractors.
COST-EFFECTIVE TECHNOLOGY
- Imported cold mix cost per kg Rs 180. Hot mix cost in Worli plant per kg Rs 10. Cold mix cost in Worli plant per kg Rs 30
- BMC officers plan to ask road contractors to use cold mix instead of the hot mix
- For this monsoon, the civic body will prepare only 1,500 tonne of cold mix, of which 1,000 tonne will be used
