A two-day training programme for road construction engineers of Ladakh was commenced on July 7 & 8 with a focus on the usage of plastic waste and locally available material in road constructions in Ladakh.

The training was organised by the Rural Development Department of Ladakh in collaboration with the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), New Delhi. 70 participants including road engineers from the rural engineering wing, RD department, BRO, NHIDCL, consultants, and officers of relevant departments participated.

The training programme was inaugurated by Commissioner/Secretary, Roads and Buildings, UT Ladakh, Ajeet Sahu in the presence of Commissioner/Secretary, Rural Development, Saugat Biswas, DC, Leh Shrikant Suse, Chief Engineer R&B, Prakash Tanoch, scientists from CRRI and other senior officers of UT Administration.

Commissioner/Secretary, Ajeet Kumar Sahu said that the training programme will help the engineers in bringing about improvements in the road construction activities in the cold climatic conditions of Ladakh and help the engineers in better utilization of plastic waste in road construction technologies.

Comm/Secy, RD Dept. Saugat Biswas congratulated the engineers for participating in the training programme and urged everyone to take full advantage of the two days workshop. He stated that with this training the officials will learn advanced techniques to reuse the plastic waste in road construction which will in turn also help protect the fragile environment of Ladakh following the vision of making a carbon-neutral Ladakh. He extended his gratitude to the five scientists from CRRI for conducting the workshop in Ladakh.

CRRI, New Delhi which is a specialized laboratory of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) is engaged in carrying out research and development projects on the design, construction, and maintenance of roads and runways, traffic and transportation planning of cities, management of roads, utilization of industrial waste in road construction, ground improvements environmental pollution, road traffic safety, and allied activities.

Principal Scientists from CRRI, Dr. Ambica Behl, Dr. Abhishek Mittal, Dr. Gagandeep Singh, Senior Scientist, Dr. G Bharath, and Dr. Rajiv Kumar are interacting on their domain expertise with the participants during the training programme. The training will cover subjects like usage of plastic waste, usage of locally available material, cold mix technology for faster road construction, testing technologies, design and construction of flexible pavements, road safety, recycling of bituminous pavements, and maintenance rehabilitation technologies, etc. during the training.