Making way on the Pune – Solapur Highway

Project Title	Pune Solapur NH-9 Project
Owner	National Highway Authority of India
Contractor Name	IL & FS Engineering & Construction Co. Ltd.
Project Size	39,550 sqm.
Location	Pune Solapur NH-9 Project, Maharashtra
Maximum Height of Walls	9.8 meters
System Offered	Construction of RS Wall using StrataGrid™ as soil reinforcement and StrataWall™
Consultant	ICT Pvt. Ltd.
Completion Year	2016

ITNL was constructing the expansion of the Pune-Solapur section of NH-9 to four lanes on a "Build, Operate, Transfer" business model. The Principal Client is NHAI. The road stretch of 104.6 km includes embankments, underpasses and over bridges. The approaches were constructed with the reinforced soil (RS) wall system to retain the earth instead of the conventional RCC retaining walls and proved to be cost effective and faster to construct.

Construction of RS walls was done as per Strata procedures and practice as per the "Good for Construction" Design and Drawings generated by the Strata Design Team in India as per FHWA requirements. The challenging task was to construct RS walls even while the highway traffic was uninterrupted and diverted only alongside, adhering to safety measures. At some locations, live drains were required to be diverted. Constructing of RS walls, earth backfilling and construction of concrete culverts were executed as parallel activities.

The project was completed on time, despite facing several hurdles of working on a live and busy highway. This was the result of astute planning and strict safety measures.

Constructions of the RS walls could be done without hampering traffic flow or hindering the construction of the various underpasses, over-bridges and cross-drainages / culverts, within the defined period.