Union Minister of State for Steel Sh. Faggan Singh Kulaste, while participating in the industry meet  (held on 18th July, 2023) organized under the 'One Week One Lab' program of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)-Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), said that the Steel Slag Road technology of CSIR-CRRI is playing an important role in realising the Prime Minister Sh. Narendra Modi’s mission of ‘Waste to Wealth’.

The Union Minister informed that India is the second largest steel producing country in the world and about 19 million tonnes of steel slag is generated in the country as a solid waste, which will increase to 60 million tonnes by the year 2030. (About 200 kg of steel slag is generated in one tonne of steel production).

Due to non-availability of efficient disposal methods of steel slag, huge piles of steel slag have come up around the steel plants, which have become a major source of water, air and land pollution. The 1^st road made with steel slag road interpretation technology in Surat, Gujarat, has become famous for its technological excellence at national and national level. About one lakh tonnes of steel slag aggregate has been used in its construction, under the technical guidance of CRRI at the Hazira plant of ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel. No natural ballast of any kind has been used in the construction of this road.

Border Roads Organization has also constructed a steel slag road in Arunachal Pradesh along with CRRI and Tata Steel on India-China border, having a much longer life than conventional road. Similarly, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has also successfully used this technology in road construction on National Highway-66 (Mumbai-Goa) in collaboration with JSW Steel, under the technical guidance of CRRI.

The Minister also highlighted that the Steel Ministry is working with the Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India, for the usage of steel slag road technology throughout the country.

He congratulated Dr. Manoranjan Parida, Director of CRRI and Dr. Satish Pandey, Principal Scientist, Head of Steel Slag Road Project, for the development of this technology and strongly encouraged the institute for road construction across India through this technology.

Steel Slag Road Technology

The technology has been developed by the Central Road Research Institute under a research project in collaboration with the Ministry of Steel, Government of India and four major steel manufacturing companies of the country, viz., ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel, JSW Steel, Tata Steel and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam. This technology facilitates the large-scale utilization of waste steel slag of steel plants and has proved very useful in effective disposal of about 19 million tonnes of steel slag generated in the country. This technique has been successfully tested in road construction in four major states of the country including Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Arunachal Pradesh.

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