In the next five years, there will be a sudden spurt of cold milling equipment and allied recycling equipment in India, say market watchers.
Similar to developed nations, pavement milling or cold milling or cold planning of asphalt topped pavements is fast going to become a necessity in India, considering the volumes of crushed, screened, sized and shaped aggregates required for the upcoming roads and infrastructure projects, in the country. Therefore, it will be necessary to conserve and recycle the existing aggregates from earlier roads and pavements to augment the availability of aggregates and in turn also contribute towards cost reduction in almost all road upgradation schemes in national, state, city highways and roads.

Taking a slightly different angle of vision, highways and city roads would also require periodical maintenance and relaying of asphalt top. In urban areas, where arranging fresh aggregates is a herculean challenge, cold milling is an answer to this problem in many ways.

In essence, cold milling is a controlled removal of the top layers of the asphalt pavement to reach the WMM layer underneath. In additions, it also helps even out many distortions and provides a smooth even surface to repave the roads, thereby enabling good quality riding surface for the vehicles.

Depending upon the road width and construction method, most manufacturers of cold milling equipment provide multiple, highly innovative and mechanised solutions. Suitable equipment are offered for milling roads ranging the 9 m lane width national highways to the smallest 3 m wide roads.

Presently, In India Wirtgen has the strongest presence while others like Bomag, Roadtec, Miller and others? presence is almost negligible. However, within a short span of five years, there will be a sudden spurt of such equipment and allied recycling equipment in India, say market watchers.

?Cold milling technology is slowly getting popular in India.?
- Ramesh Palagiri, Managing Director and CEO, Wirtgen India Pvt Ltd

What are the various types, sizes and applications of cold milling machines being supplied in India?
As the market leader, Wirtgen offers its customers the most extensive range of cold milling machines available, with milling widths of between 14 mm and 4.40 mm. Wirtgen has also developed numerous innovative features that further improve milling with machines ranging from the small W 35 DC all the way to the large W 2000 and ensure optimum working results.

The Wirtgen cold milling machines are used primarily for profile correction and removal of the complete asphalt layer and the RAP which comes out of it can be reused 100 per cent in various structures of the roads both bound and unbound. Cold milling also ensures safety for users like skid resistance and better braking of vehicles.

Cold milling technology is slowly getting popular in India. We have over 100 cold milling machines in India, with customers like ITNL, GR Infra Projects, Cauvery Constructions, L&T etc.

What has been the sales trend for the past five years? What are the expectations for 2016?
The market is still in a developmental stage and the technology is getting accepted slowly. In the coming years we expect more demand for these machines.

What will be the market drivers and industry segments which will significantly contribute to sustain the growth?
Last year has been very good due to a number of road projects which were awarded by the new government. Around 3,000 km of projects have been awarded in 2014-15 and for 2015-16, the target is 5,000 km. Due to the large number of new road projects being rolled out, there is a sudden demand for construction and road building equipment and also the demand for greenfield projects is increasing and expansion from 2-4 laning and 4-6 laning is being taken up. This will in turn boost the demand for road construction as well as road rehabilitation equipment.

What are the optional but productivity enhancing features, possible on your offerings?
Some options offered with the Wirtgen cold milling machines are the Flexible Cutter System (FCS), Multiplex and Vacuum Dust System (VCS). The FCS enables milling drums to be changed quickly and easily. Wirtgen has continuously optimised the system over the past 15 years. Swift conversions mean that companies can use one machine for various types of work. The range of FCS milling drums with different working widths and spacing is vast. Depending on the machine, no more than 0.5 to 1.5 hours are needed to change the milling drum, quickly converting the cold milling machine from a standard milling machine to a fine milling machine, for instance. Removing rutting from a country road, fine milling a surface prior to applying a thin layer, or removing coatings from an asphalt or concrete pavement with a micro fine milling drum ? all of these jobs and more can be carried out with one and the same cold milling machine. The range of cold milling applications with FCS is tremendous. Multiplex can be used for longitudinal profile corrections - averaging beam levelling sensors to ensure precise cutting levels.

Also keeping in line with the environmental concerns, Wirtgen offers a dust-proof system called Vacuum Cutting System which minimises the dust, ensuring minimum pollution and thus exhibiting green technology.