On the Road to Recovery !

The challenges are many. And often, they are process and fund related too. As Sudhir Hoshing, CEO – Roads, Reliance Infrastructure Limited avers. “There is no single window for various clearances for the projects. Once awarded, the developers often execute the projects properly. However, long term financing avenues are few. There is no security for lenders of road projects – they are at high financial risk. Since the bidding for the projects is always very aggressive, it later becomes nearly impossible to execute the project at the quoted rate. This then leads to default which hampers the project and has the potential to hit the operations and management. According to an estimate, top 15 companies out of the about 60 to 65 in the industry, lost their share drastically – from 82% to 65% in 2009. The market is fragmented and National Highways Authority of India – the contract awarding government agency – has many structural flaws.” It is important to note that the developer has tolling rights which are not tangible assets. Hence, the lender tends to charge high rate of interest. This way, the entire exercise goes in safeguarding money and cutting costs rather than providing strong facilities.

Hoshing adds, “Even when it comes to the problem of land acquisition, what hampers the process the most is that state government almost never comes ahead to support in the long term process – a process which stretches beyond a year from the day the information gets published in the gazette and the actual award is sanctioned. The delay in land acquisition always leads to cost overruns, thus adversely affecting the economic viability of the project.” (This issue of TrafficInfraTech carries an interview with Sudhir Hoshing in the interview section).

LeeBoy India makes a proposition to bridge the gap Bali spoke about earlier in the report. “The proposition includes, amongst other things, the right equipment, skilled and trained operator, together with an ownership of seamlessly providing equipment operation, preventive and breakdown maintenance and ensuring a pre-agreed uptime, at a fixed cost to the customer,” says Bali.

Building Process:

Bridging the gap

Various aspects of the building process demand serious looking into. What is important to see is – how mechanised are our roads today? Increased mechanisation is extremely important for better quality and good health of the roads. At a recently held conference on road infrastructure organised by IBK Media it was pointed out that when it comes to the number of equipment deployed per million people, China deploys 100 equipment, the US and Western Europe deploy 450 while India deploys only 10. Roads are, on a general basis, made of layers of compacted materials. Indian roads are mostly macadamised (i.e. pavement made of layers of compacted broken stone, now usually bound with tar or asphalt) and bitumen based. The bitumen roads require high maintenance. As the supply of cement began increasing since the 90s, some governments began taking the initiative of concretising the roads as concretised roads are weather-proof. “Increased mechanisation and technology in road building and maintenance have to be harnessed to not only substantially augment the pace of road-making but also, more importantly, the quality and longevity of our roads,” suggests Bali.

India has made reasonable progress in building the road infrastructure in the country in the last few years.  However, we have a long way to go. Of the total 50,000 kms of national highway development taken up by NHAI, 16,000 kms have been completed and 12,000 kms are under implementation. NHAI is working on awarding the balance 22,000 kms of the 4-lane highway development on DBFOT format. The lessons learnt in building these highways should change the focus from mere construction to safe and efficient operations. India now needs to build roads in a hurry. Therefore, the various stakeholders who can influence this imperative going forward will need to join forces towards this common goal.— Kamal Bali

The digging up of a metre of ground, then putting the sub-grade (40 to 80mm) and later covering and smoothening the road is old technology that is gradually being replaced by newer technologies. But the pace of their induction into the building process is slow. The basic road building process is thus: Digging of soil is done up to about one metre with crawler excavators and bulldozers. Then the first layer is laid – a sub-grade of 40 to 80 mm of soil. It is spread with the help of motor graders and compacted by soil compactors. Crushed stones / rocks, etc., find their place in the third stage again about 40 to 80mm where again, motor graders and compactors are used. This is called the Granular sub base (GSB). Then the layer of Water Mix Macadum (WMM) is put which is often between 80 to 150mm and is layered with the help of Motor Graders and Pavers. Then comes the extrmely important stage of DBM (Dense Bitumin Macadum) which everybody talks of as compacting. If not compacted properly, the strength of the roads can be adversely affected. The top layer, which is about 20 to 40mm thick, gets its shape and quality from paving and tandem rolling.

Some factors are extremely important in this process:

Paving width: plays a very important role in the building of roads. The situation is better than about a decade ago but for strong and healthy roads, proper pavers are very important. Automatic machines that can build long distances in a day are entering India.

Compacting: is a significant part of road building. In the compaction process, quite often the compactor’s vibratory application is switched off lest it should affect the structures near the site. The static compactor gives only about one-fourth of the needed compaction. Also, the use of improper compaction in order to save cost adversely impacts the quality of the roads.

Pothole fillers: Many significant international companies have entered, or are in the process of entering, India that claim to have solutions to the problem of potholes. But then, maintenance of roads has never been our strength.

Poor quality of design of roads: is again an important reason that leads to the inferior quality of roads. What compounds the problem is that often an inefficient or corrupt bureaucracy looks the other way when substandard roads are delivered. In fact, these two, along with inadequate supply of infrastructure, are rated as the biggest hurdles to providing a good and safe infrastructure facility in India in many surveys. Less time and budget costs are the other constraints. These, quite often, lead to a road that is delivered without any thought to real field conditions. Most often than not, no alternatives are ever thought of when substandard roads are handed over.

Drainage: Quite often the roads pave in due to wrong or inexistent drainage system. In the absence of a proper drainage system, the water that seeps in the roads is retained by the roads and gradually weakens it. Drainage is extremely important in the pre-construction planning process. Often ignored or shabbily done, it is the one of the main causes of leading to cracks as the water does not get a way out of the roads.

Corruption:

Cause for worry

Prof M N Sree Hari, Advisor to Government of Karnataka, TT & Infrastructure, had recently said at a conference on road infrastructure, “At the end of the concession period which is 20-25 years or more, there is no control or risk management. The concessionaire might hand over the road back to the government ‘as it is’ and it might start falling apart just the very next year.” Prof Hari was of the opinion that the concessionaire might just carry out some cosmetic surgery – put a thin overlay and conceal the roughness – before handing over the road and the government would just accept it back as there is no provision of calculating the payment or carrying out the assessment.

That leads us to the issue of corruption that the industry has been so vocal about. Just a few months ago, Defence Minister A K Antony had agreed at a press conference that corruption had hit the construction of strategic roads by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO). He had said, “A court of inquiry has been ordered to investigate the irregularities reported in the works in Himachal especially against officers against whom prima facie cases were found and have been removed from their present assignments. Also, the chief technical examiner of the Central Vigilance Commission is investigating Arunachal road construction cases.”

Rohatgi also feels that existence of corruption in the entire value chain as well as lack of skilled workers could be a key factor leading to the overall dismal condition.

Government: Indifferent or Enabler

The government’s apathy, a related issue, is a concern Indian as well foreign companies setting up base in India raise. Says Bali: “There is an urgent need for infrastructure development in India and the Indian Government has indicated Infrastructure as a key thrust area. This has been backed by policies and investment by the government. For example, the Government of India has planned to double investments in infrastructure from US$ 500 billion in the current five year plan (2007-2012) to US$ 1000 billion in the next (2012-2017). On the other hand, there still exists a vast scope for the government to aid the industry and act as an enabler by bringing in the necessary reforms (land and financial reforms in particular), transparency and removing road blocks.”

Babu adds: “As far as the ‘enabling role of the Governments’ in building roads is concerned, we all can see that Central Government, through the MoRT&H and NHAI and most of the states, through their PWDs / R&Bs and Road Development Corporations, have made strides in enabling the fast pace of development of roads across the regions, states and the country. At the policy level and so far as standardisation of bidding documents is concerned, there has been steady progress and work is still being done. The critical issues remain with regard to administrative support, police help, managing local issues / demands, etc.”

Contract types and payments: Is OPRC the answer?

Earlier, the roads were built by the public work departments of the government which engaged labourers to carry out the job. They were paid based on items, but now we are gradually moving more towards output based contracts called the Output and Performance-Based Road Contract’ (OPRC). In these contracts what matters is the performance of the road and not the input, i.e., not what material has been put inside the roads. If substandard material is put in the roads, the performance of the roads will be substandard too. So, the payment, based on this substandard performance, will be deducted accordingly. This system of OPRC, which is yet to evolve in India, will be dealt with separately in the subsequent issues of TrafficInfraTech.

In the conventional system which is still followed to a great extent, the contractor and supervision consultant are required to solve the road damage problems without knowing what the design consultant had actually done in the project. It is difficult to know what his design decisions were based on – discussions with government officials, study / survey of the area, public opinion or views of some other consultant. In the absence of this information, they are literally left in the dark to find the right solutions.