Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari is pushing for the use of waste material such as plastic and slag cement for the construction of highways.

He believes that slag cement, which costs about ₹120 a bag, could be a game changer. A traditional cement bag costs about ₹410-478.

Slag is a type of cement produced during the reduction of iron ore to iron in a blast furnace. Molten slag is tapped from a blast furnace, rapidly quenched with water, dried and ground to a fine powder.

Talking to BusinessLine on the sidelines of the Make in India event here, Gadkari said there is a huge inventory of such a type of cement in the country. The Ministry has therefore decided to build cement concrete highways in the place of traditional bitumen roads.

Cement roads are cost-effective, both in construction and maintenance.

A few test roads have been built in the North with slag cement, he said.

Gadkari further said the Ministry is developing logistics park around big cities such as Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur, which will take care of the heavy traffic and decongest the roads. Such areas outside the city will also reduce pollution.

Hybrid model

He added that the Ministry has also come up with a hybrid model of financing for NHAI highway contractors, as they have faced a lot of problems over the past seven years with the PPP model.

When the Modi government took charge, 384 NHAI road projects were held up but today only seven projects have been stalled, and ways are being devised to solve their problems of environment and financing, he said.

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