The Hindu Business Line : How safe, strong the highways?

THE euphoria over the "Golden Quadrilateral'' project solving the road infrastructure problem could be short-lived, if the critical issues of safety, factors contributing to efficiency and costs-saving to users — largely commercial vehicle operators — are not given importance. Above all, a principle of optimum exploitation of the facility should be put in place to reduce frequent damage to the carriageway by overuse in pursuit of short-term gains. This will negate the very purpose of developing a critical infrastructure of international standard at a huge cost and reduce its life span.

Though the highways are now being used for a linear drive by cargo vehicles, it will not be long before the much-debated multi-modal carrier system is developed. This would no doubt minimise the wear and tear of the carriageways. However, until such a facility is developed, and if the current axle load stipulations are not strictly enforced, the `Golden Quadrilateral' could lose its shine sooner than warranted.

According to the Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training (IFTRT), to protect the Rs 65,000-crore Golden Quadrilateral/North-South Corridor, it is necessary to take a re-look at the Central Motor Vehicles Act and re-frame the rules governing speed and axle load norms for commercial vehicles.

In a representation to the Government recently, the IFTRT pointed out that it was imperative to changeover to modern technology in trucks and tyres to improve efficiencies and achieve faster turnaround to improve their earnings.

The IFTRT team, led by the senior technical analyst, Mr Ravi Jain, said truckers should be able to reduce their turnaround time significantly if the present speed limit of 65 km per hour is raised to 100 kmph without compromising on the maximum axle load capacity stipulation. Unlike now, when more than 90 per cent of the commercial vehicles use conventional cross-ply tyres, which with overloading, affects the efficiency of the vehicles, radial tyres should be used to protect the roads from faster wear and tear.

With commercial vehicles the predominant users of the highways, it is imperative that haulage capacity norm is strictly enforced.

The Indian roads are built for a specified load of 10.2 tonnes axle load, which is also the maximum requirement of the rear axle of a truck as per the Motor Vehicles Act (1988). Permitting anything more would not only damage the roads faster.

There should be an efficient and transparent system to encourage the users to willingly pay the toll fees and avoid the express-toll ways by using parallel internal (toll-free) roads.