Ghaziabad’s Flat Owners Federation has demonstrated a road-pothole repair material that it says can make a damaged patch ready for traffic in 15 minutes, while alleging that the Ghaziabad Public Works Department has delayed adopting it.
The live demonstration was held on Sunday at the federation headquarters in Model Town East. Organisers filled two potholes, one dry and another containing water, with Ecofix. According to the federation, both patches were prepared for traffic within 15 minutes.
Federation chairman and retired Colonel TP Tyagi said Ecofix has been authorised by the Central Road Research Institute and manufactured by Road Craft India. The material is described as a mixture of steel slag and a polymer binder. Steel slag is generated as a waste product during steel manufacturing; the federation said about 200 kilograms of it is produced for every tonne of steel.
The federation said the material does not require tar, aggregate, heating or removal of water from the pothole before application. It also claimed that road traffic does not need to be stopped for several hours during the repair process. These features were presented as a response to the disruption and delays commonly associated with conventional patch repairs, although the demonstration itself does not establish how the material will perform across Ghaziabad’s wider road network.
Tyagi alleged that the governments of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh had already implemented Ecofix, while the Ghaziabad PWD had been reluctant to use it. The federation said the department’s position was that its patch-repair rules were different. The report did not include a separate statement from the PWD confirming or responding to the allegation.
Federation secretary Mukesh Agrawal said the PWD should have begun using the material on its own and questioned the department’s silence despite requests from civil society. The federation has demanded that the material be adopted without a 24-hour delay if it can fill potholes quickly.
The episode highlights an immediate administrative question for road agencies: how new repair materials are assessed and incorporated into public-works specifications. A product demonstration can show application speed, but formal adoption also depends on the responsible authority’s technical rules and implementation decision. In this case, the supplied report does not provide details of any Ghaziabad PWD trial, approval process, cost assessment or performance evaluation.
The federation’s demand now places the next step with the road authority. The report does not specify whether the PWD will conduct a formal trial or revise its patch-repair practice, leaving the department’s response and any decision on Ecofix as the next developments to watch.
