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DyCM Mein to engineers: Go hi-tech for sustainable roads

Itanagar: Arunachal Pradesh deputy chief minister Chowna Mein on Friday exhorted the engineers to bring in the latest technologies to make the roads in the state sustainable.

Addressing the two-day seminar on ‘Design & construction of sustainable road and bridge in hill roads’ organised by India Roads Congress in collaboration with the state’s PWD here, Mein advised the engineers to take optimum time in designing and preparing detailed project reports (DPRs).

He, however, asked the engineers to execute the works in the scheduled time once it is sanctioned.

“We need to revive the work culture of the CPWD’s days,” he said and urged the engineers of various departments to learn from the deliberation from experts from various road constructing agencies like MoRTH, BRO and members of India Roads Congress.

The DCM acknowledged the fact that the design and construction of roads in Arunachal Pradesh have to face lots of challenges due to tough terrains, landslides prone areas, loose soils and sinking zones.

He also requested the eminent personalities to make maximum deliberations on Arunachal’s perspectives and urged them to come up with a policy out of the deliberations which would be adopted by the state government.

Mein further advocated for forming a state policy on the maintenance of roads saying, “It is high time Arunachal Pradesh should have a Maintenance Policy as without maintenance roads will definitely get damaged over the years”.

The deputy chief minister urged the local engineers to shoulder the responsibility for building good quality roads in the state citing that a major chunk of engineers is local who are aware of the local conditions and situations.

“If we are not doing well then we are doing bad to ourselves,” he said and urged them to take optimum benefits from the seminar.

Indian Road Congress secretary-general S K Nirmal, state PWD commissioner, Kaling Tayeng and SID&P chief engineer  Tayu Gara also spoke on the occasion.

During the two-day event, deliberations on various topics like ‘General Concept, Planning & Govt Policies for Hill Roads by MORTH’, ‘Planning, Survey, Investigation & Design of Hill Roads’, ‘Construction & Maintenance of Hill Roads’, ‘Disaster Mitigation & Tunnels for Hill Roads’ and ‘Road Safety & Asset Management for Hill Roads’, Bridges & Cross Drainage Structures for Hill Roads’, would be presented by the eminent speakers.