History Of Development Of Road Pavements In India

It is believed that the oldest mode of travel was on the footpaths later on, with the development of bullock carts and other simple animal drawn vehicles, roads were also developed. These early roads were constructed as kutcha roads, consisting of ordinary earth. The kutcha roads were soon deteriorated under heavy bullock cart traffic Thus metalled roads came into existence. The first indication of these roads in pre-historic period has been revealed by the excavations at Mohenjodaro and harappa (paklistan). It is believed that these towns were constructed 3500 years B.C. Earth and paved street pavements have been found in both of these unearthed towns.

the history of India does not reveal much about the different construction material used during different periods. However, the remains of the road in Rajgir ( Patna District ), constructed in 6th century B.C. i.e. during Aryan period and some archeological records show that the materials commonly used at that time for road construction were stones, mostlyin the undressed form. This material was used only for metalling the major roads whereas all other roads were constructed as ordinary earth roads. In towns, the road pavements used to be of undressed stone slabs.

With the development of techniques of modern road construction in England and many other countries, extensive development in metaled roads took place during British period in India. These roads were constructed on the basis of techniques suggested by Telford and Macadam in England.

Road Pavement

Water bound macadam (WBM) construction, based on Macadam technique, was commonly adopted. This method is now considered as one of the popular methods of construction road pavements. In this method, the brokenstones ofthe base and of wearing course, if any, are boundtogether by the stonedust in the poresence of moisture, WBM construction techniqueis still in use in our country both as a finished road pavements and also as ad good base coarse for superior road pavements.

With the developments of fast moving and pklneumatic tyred vehicles WBM road  pavements could not lost lost longer as they create dust nuisance during dry weather and became muddy during monsoon. In order to minimize dust nuisance, a thin coat of bituminous materials was tried with varying degrees of success.

Later on, it was experienced that thin  surface coating of bituminous materials was not sufficient to take the load of heavy commercial vehicles. So development of bituminous macadam pavements took place for better results, superior materials like bituminous concrete pavements were also developed.

The present trend of providing road pavements is to use cement concrete, plain as well as reinforced, for their construction. The cement concrete road pavements provide a good and an even riding surface They can be designed to take up the heaviest loads expected on the roads even in adverse soil and climatic conditions. Since concrete roads pavements involve heavy initial cost, therefore, they are not being extensively used in our country.

India is a developing country. There is,therefore, a dire necessity of a good network of roads in the country to keep pace with her developing plans.To meet this requirement, soil stabilized roads pavements have been developed so that maximum road length can be constructed at minimum cost. the present ordinary earth roads are also being improved by this method.