Ahmedabad road resurfacing work has slowed sharply because contractors are not receiving enough asphalt, putting at risk the planned resurfacing of 214 kilometres of roads before the Diwali holiday, according to a report by Nav Gujarat Samay citing sources in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s engineering department.
The shortage is affecting contractors working on road resurfacing across the city. The report said several contractors had begun stopping work before the Diwali break because the required material was unavailable, rather than solely because of the customary seasonal migration of construction workers.
Asphalt for municipal road projects is required to be purchased from government-owned petroleum companies such as Indian Oil Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation, according to the report. Municipal engineering sources attributed the shortage to a combination of international crude oil supply pressures and increased demand for asphalt for repairs on national and state highways.
The report linked the supply constraints to ongoing conflicts, including the Iran-United States and Russia-Ukraine conflicts, which it said had affected crude oil availability. Asphalt is produced as a by-product of crude oil processing, and the quantity reaching Ahmedabad is reportedly insufficient for the city’s current resurfacing requirements.
At the same time, heavy rainfall and road quality issues have led to extensive pothole formation on national and state highways. The report said petroleum companies were allocating a large share of available asphalt to highway repair and resurfacing projects, leaving municipal road contractors with inadequate supplies.
Municipal engineering sources said contractors with limited stocks were continuing work according to priorities set by the civic administration. However, the quantity of hot-mix material being used each day has fallen substantially from earlier levels, when thousands of tonnes were reportedly consumed daily. This has reduced the pace of resurfacing to what the report described as a very slow rate.
The slowdown could prevent the civic body from completing the planned resurfacing of roads across different parts of Ahmedabad before Diwali. The immediate impact is likely to be uneven progress between locations, with priority roads receiving available material while other stretches remain pending.
The material shortage is also changing the usual construction calendar. Road and building department contractors normally suspend work during the Diwali period as workers return to their native places. Municipal sources said, however, that several contractors had already started winding up operations because of the lack of asphalt, and some workers had left earlier than usual.
Work generally resumes around Labh Pancham after the Diwali holidays. The municipal engineering sources cited in the report said that if the asphalt shortage continues, the restart of resurfacing activity could be delayed by another 10 to 15 days. The report did not provide a revised completion schedule for the 214-kilometre target or details of the locations that would receive priority beyond the municipal engineering department’s stated prioritisation process.
