The CE manufacturers should offer a complete range of equipment with enhanced after-sales support, says Sanjay Saxena, Senior Vice President & Head – Heavy Equipment Business Unit, Sany Heavy Industry India Pvt Ltd.

How is the construction of roads and highways progressing in 2021? What needs to be done to ensure timely deliveries?
The construction of roads and highways is in full swing in 2021. The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways is leaving no stone unturned to complete the task on time and striving hard to turn the pandemic crisis into an opportunity.

To meet the increasing demands, CE manufacturers have increased the focus on localisation for faster deliveries. For Sany India, localisation of products has been a top priority. To enhance the development and delivery capability, manufacturers should focus on logistics and services support.

What kind of steps are needed to ensure the road and construction sector remains mobilised throughout the year?
Technological advancement is the need of every sector and it holds for the CE sector as well. To ensure that the road and construction sector remains mobilised throughout the year, the first step of the manufacturers should be on the development of new products. Technological advancement ensures the timely construction of projects. It also helps reduce the cost of projects, while performing multiple tasks without any hindrances. The CE manufacturers should also offer a complete range of equipment with enhanced after-sales support.

How important is the role of the shear strength of soil in the construction and maintenance of highways?
Shear strength is a very important property of soil and plays an important role in the construction and maintenance of highways. It is estimated the bearing capacity of foundations and in assessing the stability of construction of highway and pavements etc. The shear strength of soil can be regarded as its intrinsic capacity to resist failure when forces act on the soil mass. The efficient and safe construction of highway flexible pavements is dependent on the shear strength of the subgrade and tyre contact stresses of construction equipment.

What kind of equipment in your portfolio are witnessing a demand?
Sany India is logging a positive growth in sales, which has been impeded by the Covid-19 lockdown. With a strong demand recovery in the mining and construction equipment industry, Sany India is witnessing a huge demand for excavators, foundation equipment like piling rigs, mobile cranes and road construction equipment.

As the construction equipment industry is estimated to grow significantly by 20-25 per cent in 2021, we are quite optimistic that the demand for construction equipment will surge significantly in the upcoming months.

What are the criteria to select rigid or flexible pavements?
In simple terms, a flexible pavement can be defined as a pavement layer comprising a mixture of aggregates and bitumen, heated and mixed properly and then laid and compacted on a bed of granular layer. Rigid pavements, on the other hand, are made from cement concrete or reinforced concrete slabs, laid over a low strength concrete layer (dry lean concrete or DLC) or on a well-compacted layer of aggregates or both. And such pavements are substantially ‘stiffer’ than flexible pavements due to the high modulus of elasticity of the PCC material.

The rigid pavement evaluation parameters are pavement layer properties, void detection, and load transfer efficiency of joints. Flexible pavements are preferred over cement concrete roads because of their certain advantages like they can be strengthened and improved in stages with the growth of traffic. The flexible pavements are less expensive in regards to initial cost and maintenance. The largest advantage of using rigid pavement is its durability and ability to hold a shape against traffic and difficult environmental conditions.