60% Reclaimed Asphalt on NH-716: Circular Highway Construction and India's Low-Carbon Infrastructure Transition Category GS Date Data rule Infrastructure, Environment and Science & GS Paper III 3 September 2026 20+ numerical facts Technology
WHY IN NEWS
- CSIR-CRRI, OSEPL and Ooms India demonstrated 60% Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement in a Dense Bituminous Macadam layer on NH- 716.
- The test was conducted on the Chennai-Tirupati Package-I under field construction conditions.
- High-RAP use converts old pavement into a productive construction input instead of treating it as waste.
TOP DATA & FACTS FOR UPSC
- RAP share in the demonstration: 60%.
- Project highway: NH- 716.
- India's road network: about 63.73 lakh km.
- India has the world's 2 nd-largest road network.
- National Highway length in March 2026: about 1,46,572 km.
- National Highway length in 2014: 91,287 km.
- NH length increased by about 61% over that period.
- Four-lane-and-above NH length in 2014: 18,371 km.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
- Road recycling has been used internationally for decades, but high percentages require strict mix design and quality control.
- India's rapidly expanding highway network creates a growing stock of milled asphalt that can be recycled.
- CSIR-CRRI has long supported pavement research and specification development.
- The 60% RAP trial is important because it moves high-content recycling from laboratory discussion to field-scale implementation.
- Four-lane-and-above length in : about 45,.