A hi-tech slip-form paver machine will be used to accelerate the on-going relaying work of the one-kilometre Mada Street near the famous Arunachaleswarar temple in Tiruvannamalai with cement concrete ahead of the Karthigai Deepam festival, which is scheduled between November 14 - 30.
Accompanied by Collector B. Murugesh, Minister for Public Works, Highways, and Minor Ports E.V. Velu oversaw the functioning of the equipment in laying the stretch of concrete. The relaying work, which costs ₹15 crore, will provide much-needed relief for devotees, who are having to walk on the existing pothole-ridden stretch to reach the temple. “We have roped in an Indore-based firm to do the job for us. The work will be completed in a month,” K. Raghuraman, Assistant Divisional Engineer (ADE), State Highways (Tiruvannamalai), told The Hindu.
In the first phase of the work, the stretch between the Gandhi statue and Pei Gopuram on the western side of the temple, a distance of one km, will be paved. Subsequently, the relaying work using the equipment will be extended to another km.
Officials of State Highways, which executes the work, said that the construction materials are continuously prepared and poured over the paving surface through the machine, and the levelling is done simultaneously. It helps to provide a continuous concrete pavement surface with a smooth surface and no joints. Using the machine, the precision level of the surfacing is very high.
In other words, 150–200 metres of road laying can be done per day using the machine, whereas only three bays of laying can be done manually every day. Each bay measures around 4.5 metres. As the width of Mada Street varies between 12 and 16 metres due to the availability of land, uniformity in relaying work can be achieved using the machine.
Highways officials said that the machine was roped for the purpose as the car festival has to run on Mada Street for the upcoming Maha Deepam festival, which falls on November 26. Re-laying the stretch using the machine can ensure durability. Most runways in airports are laid using the equipment, highway officials said.
