PIB TrackerSixty per cent of a new NH-716 pavement layer came from the old road
CSIR-CRRI, OSEPL and Ooms India laid a dense bituminous macadam layer carrying 60 per cent reclaimed asphalt on NH-716, using REJUBIT, an indigenous rejuvenator for aged bitumen.
What happened
- CSIR-CRRI, OSEPL and Ooms India demonstrated 60% Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement in the Dense Bituminous Macadam layer on National Highway-716, Chennai-Tirupati Package-I.
- At 60 per cent RAP, a majority of the material in the new asphalt mix is recovered from the pavement being replaced, reducing the call on virgin aggregate and bitumen.
- REJUBIT, an indigenous RAP rejuvenator developed jointly by CSIR-CRRI and Ooms India, was used to restore key properties of the aged bitumen in the reclaimed material.
- The trial ran the full chain - recovery and processing, characterisation, mix design, rejuvenation, hot-mix plant production, laying and field compaction - under live construction conditions.
- Dr. Ambika Behl, Senior Principal Scientist, CSIR-CRRI, led the demonstration and Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Scientist E1, worked on the design and construction of the section, with NHAI and Tamil Nadu officials present.
For Prelims
- Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP): material milled from an existing road, carrying aggregate and aged bitumen; on NH-716 it supplied 60 per cent of the new asphalt mix.
- Dense Bituminous Macadam (DBM): the bituminous layer in which the 60% RAP mix was laid, on National Highway-716, Chennai-Tirupati Package-I.
- REJUBIT: an indigenous RAP rejuvenator developed jointly by CSIR-CRRI and Ooms India, designed to restore key properties of aged bitumen so that a higher RAP share can be carried.
- CSIR-CRRI: the Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi, which provided the technical guidance for the trial section; its Director is Dr. Chalumuri Ravi Sekhar.
- Project leadership: Dr. Ambika Behl, Senior Principal Scientist (Scientist F), CSIR-CRRI, led the 60% RAP field demonstration, with Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Scientist E1.
- Executing partners: Oriental Structural Engineers Pvt Ltd (OSEPL) built the section and Ooms Polymer Modified Bitumen Pvt Ltd (Ooms India) supplied the rejuvenation technology.
- The recycling chain: RAP recovery and processing, material characterisation, mix design, rejuvenation, hot-mix plant production, laying and field compaction.
- Highway Research Station, Chennai: the Tamil Nadu body whose Director, Er. A. Venkatachalam, was chief guest; NHAI and State officials also attended.
For UPSC: This is the concrete Indian instance to reach for when an answer needs circular-economy practice inside construction, or a CSIR laboratory taking a formulation from the bench to a working site. It is the material-efficiency counterpart to the usual capacity-and-spending account of highway building, and it lets you argue resource security and waste reduction from the same fact.
What it is NOT: The release gives no tonnage of reclaimed asphalt used, no length for the trial section, and no figure for cost, bitumen or emissions saved. It names no IRC or MoRTH specification permitting 60 per cent RAP, reports no earlier ceiling that this rate exceeds, and publishes no performance test result on the laid mix.
For Mains
Syllabus: GS3.12 · GS3.14 · Linkage L2
Anchor
India's road programme is usually argued as a spending story. NH-716 lets you argue it as a materials story instead: sixty per cent of the dense bituminous macadam laid on the Chennai-Tirupati package was recovered from the pavement it replaced, which turns the existing network from a maintenance liability into a stock of aggregate and bitumen.
Substantiation (data)
Use the specifics rather than the sentiment. Sixty per cent RAP, in the DBM layer, on NH-716 Chennai-Tirupati Package-I, through the chain the release names in full: recovery and processing, characterisation of the aged binder, mix design, rejuvenation with REJUBIT, hot-mix plant production, laying and field compaction, all under live construction conditions.
Exemplification
REJUBIT is the example to reach for when a question asks what indigenous R&D actually delivers. Developed jointly by CSIR-CRRI and Ooms India, it restores properties of the aged bitumen locked inside reclaimed asphalt, and NH-716 is where it moved from laboratory formulation to a hot-mix plant feeding a highway under construction.
Problematisation
One trial section is not a policy. The release reports no tonnage consumed, no length of section, no cost or emissions saved and no test result on the laid mix, and cites no specification permitting sixty per cent RAP. A demonstration is evidence being gathered, not a norm already changed, and the card should be used that way.
Counterpoint
Against the assumption that recycling costs performance: the engineering claim here is that aged bitumen is a defect to be corrected chemically, not a reason to discard the material around it. The release rests that claim on characterisation of the recovered binder and quality control at the plant, which is where a high-RAP mix is won or lost.
Position
Bitumen import dependence and the extraction load of virgin aggregate are reduced by the same act of recycling, so high-RAP construction belongs in a resource-security answer as much as an environmental one. The case will be settled by field performance across seasons and traffic, and NH-716 has produced a first section, not that record.
Deploys into: Circular economy in construction materials · Indigenous R&D moving from laboratory to field scale · Resource efficiency and import dependence in bitumen · Treating existing infrastructure as a material stock
Ministry of Science & Technology · 2026-09-02 · PRID 2306102 · PIB source ↗