An important milestone was reached on Saturday when the first section of India's National Highway Steel Slag Road, connecting Mumbai and Goa, was formally inaugurated by Dr. V.K. Saraswat, Member (S&T), NITI AAYOG, according to the press release.
The highway represents a significant advancement in the environmentally friendly and robust construction of national highways by reusing waste from the steel industry.
The CSIR-Central Road Research Institute (CSIR-CRRI) has developed the Steel Slag Road Technology, which converts the waste from the steel industry into wealth and helps the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in constructing more durable and environmentally friendly national highways across the country, Dr. Saraswat told the media.
JSW Steel constructed the four-lane, one-kilometer steel slag road on the Indapur-Panvel section of NH-66 Mumbai-Goa under the technological supervision of CSIR-CRRI. For the construction of this road, approximately 80,000 tons of CONARC steel slag aggregates were processed into steel slag aggregates at the JSW Steel Dolvi, Raigad plant.
The road has sections of bituminous and cement concrete steel slag in the RHS and LHS lanes at the same location. Slag cement and processed steel slag aggregates were used to construct the cement concrete road in all its layers in this section.