MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR OF ROADS AND CAUSES OF DISINTEGRATION OF ROADS :-

Roads are considered important net work of transportation of the vehicular traffic and too beautify the small towns and areas covered by the said road net work used for the welfare of people of country. As such it is very important that preventive maintenance should be carried out at the first indication of failure, and immediately it becomes necessary as delay will cause minor defects to develop into major ones , as a result of traffic action or weather after affects. Generally the failure of road structure may be due to:-- (1) Inadequate drainage or poor maintenance of the drainage system (2) Bad design, ie insufficient thickness of construction to carry the traffic load imposed (3) Faulty construction of which the commonest example is inadequate compaction of the subgrade and base (4) Poor surface maintenance (5) Open textured road surface are more liable to fail than close textured surfaces. The source of trouble should always be determined before making the repairs. Surface repairs on a defective base or subgrade is a waste. The condition of the road base should always be investigated. Undue strengthening of weak spots may create differences in traffic wear and impact which cause additional damage to the adjoining surface areas. Every effort must be made to reduce interference with traffic with good organization of repair work. Warning signs and barriers should be carefully sited. Maintenance materials should be kept available in small dumps along the road side, to be drawn as required by maintenance road gangs. Keeping in view the above guidelines of the code for consideration under repairs, timely action should be taken for the maintenance and repair of roads, particularly before the rainy season .