JGT technology helps solve soil erosion, landslide problem

The National Jute Board (NJB) today said perennial problems of soil erosion, landslides and bad roads caused by incessant rains in the North East could be improved with their new Jute Geo-Textile (JGT) technology.
"We have developed eco friendly solutions to hill slope stabilisation, improve road construction and also river bank embankments," A K Khastagir, project manager of NJB told reporters after a workshop held here.
Meghalaya, Assam and all other north eastern states suffer due to incessant rainfall and the JGT technology is one of the solutions for controlling landslides, soil erosion and bad roads, he said.
Explaining the reliability of JGT in road construction, NJB chief consultant T Sanyal said Jute does not have a long life span itself, but it acts only as a catalyst to make the soil more stable which leads to longer life for the roads or where slope stabilisation is needed.

Use of JGT also allows the need for thinner layer concrete materials to build a road compared to that without JGT, which ultimately reduces the cost, he said.
"Another important factor about JGT is that it does not have undesirably long life like synthetic geo-textile, acceptance of which has declined in this age of increased environment consciousness," the NJB consultant said.
The JGT, being aggressively pushed by the National Jute Board (NJB), is an emerging technology which has been probed as cheaper and much more environment friendly compared to synthetic geo-textile.
However, the government agencies in India, one of the world's largest producer of jute, are not yet very keen to adopt the JGT technology in major construction works such as road construction, embankments.