SUMMARY

Under the CDLD policy the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the district administration of Lower
Dir district are interested to facilitate the local community or CBOs and to reduce the gaps between the
local communities and government. In CDLD Policy the district administration are interested to construct
the PCC roads from village to village, village to link road and from main road to village according to the
demand of local communities or active CBOs. The communities or CBOs are directly involved in the
implementation of CDLD projects. This manual will help the communities to construct the pcc road and
will build the capacity of the CBOs. Which will help them in the future for operation and maintenance
for pcc road?

Pcc roads will facilitate the local communities as

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To transport their goods, vegetables and fruits to nearby Markets.

To get access to health and education and clean drinking water facilities.
To get basic needs from district administration and government.
To get easy way in rain and storm.
To get people to people contact easy.

Introduction of pcc road

The construction of earthen road or way from concrete (plain cement concrete) is
called PCC roads. The alignment of the road should be such that
1- It should have a straight alignment.
2- The alignment of the pcc road should be free of any social issues.
3- It should be benefiting maximum beneficiaries of the community base organization.
4- It should not pass through the graveyard or other important culture able land.

Construction of PCC road step by step:

1- Tools require for the construction of PCC roads.
2- Sub grad preparation (sub grad is surface on which concrete layer is laid).
3- Concrete and its constituents.
4- Concrete preparation or mixing of concrete.
5- Concrete mixing ratio.
6- Concrete placing.
7- Concrete curing.
1- Tools require for the construction of PCC roads.
The following tools are requiring for CBO to start the construction of PCC road.

Steel shovels
Wheel barrow
Hammer
Taghari (steel pan)
Mixer machine
Trowels
Water drums
Jabal

Measuring tap
Saws
Nails
Hand level
Wooden board shuttering
Measuring box

1- Sub grad preparation.

Sub grad is a surface on which concrete is laid. Proper care should be taken in the preparation of sub
grad because it is a foundation for pcc road. The following point should be keeping in mind for sub grad
preparation.
1- The sub grad surface should be free from loose materials.
2- It should be well compacted in case of filling.
3- Filling should be properly supported by retaining wall or side wall.
4- It should be free from wood and tree pieces like leaves of trees and shopping bags.
5- Culvert should be constructed during the sub grad preparation.
6- RCC pipe with 1:2:4 concrete should be used in culvert according to drawing and design.
7- RCC Pipe diameter should be according to drawing and design.
2- Concrete and its constituents.
Concrete is made of cement, sand and aggregates. It is mixture of cement, sand, aggregates and water.
All these ingredients are mix together in different ratio according to the strength of concrete required.
The quality of concrete is mostly depending upon the good qualities of these ingredients. The
ingredients of the concrete are as below:

Cement
Sand
Crush
Water

Cement:
Cement is binding material used in concrete and mortar. It is an important constituent of
concrete. It is easily available in Malakand Division.

Always use good quality cement. Fresh cement

is like a fine powder which is commonly
available in sealed bags. On opening the bag,
cement starts absorbing moisture from the air
and with the passage of time, small and large
lumps are formed, which results in the decline of
cement strength.

So the cement bag once opened should be used as soon as possible

One bag of cement has a weight of 50kg. It is expensive material use in concrete. Proper care should be
adopt while using it in concrete which are as
1- Cement bags should be used with in 3 month after its manufacturing date. Manufacturing
date is written on each bag of cement.
2- Stake the cement bags in such a place that it should not get moisture.
3- The cement bag once opened should be used as soon as possible.
4- The lumps in cement also appear if the sealed bags are placed for a longer time.

5- This is the major indication of old cement and its use should be avoided.
6- Cement should be store in room but spread plastic below the cement bags that it
cannot absorb moisture from the floor or ground.
Sand
Sand should be sharp sand with angular grains to
ensure good bonding qualities. Sand should be well graded with a
range of grain sizes, which should have size from 4.75mm down to
0.15mm. Sand should be free from dust, stone, grass, leaves, clay
and mica chippings.

Field Test for Sand

Take a glass of water and add some quantity of sand in it. Then shake it vigorously and
allow it to settle. If clay is present in sand, it will form a distinct layer at the top of sand.
Take a pinch of sand and taste it. If tasted salty then there exist some salt in sand.
Take sand and rub it against the fingers. If fingers are stained, it indicates that sand
contains earthy matter.
The color of sand will indicate the purity of sand. The size and sharpness of grains may
be examined by touching and observing visually.

Water
Drinking water should be used in concrete and mortar. The use of
contaminated Water reduces the strength of mortar and concrete. It should be free
from suspended impurities like grass, leaves of trees and bushes.

Crush
In lower Dir district crush of good qualities are available locally. In PCC road construction crush
should have the following qualities:
1- inch down crush size should be use in pcc road
construction.
2- The crush should be angular and sharp edge.
3- It should be locally available.
4- It should be graded crush. It should have size inches
down size up to 2/8 inch size.
5- It should be free from leaves of tree and pieces of
timber and other impurities.
Concrete preparation or mixing of concrete:
There are two different methods used for mixing the ingredient s of
concrete;
a. Hand mixing.
b. Mixer machine mixing.

a. Hand mixing:
In this method of mixing the concrete
constituents are mixed together with help of unskilled labor (men).
The following points should keep in mind during hand mixing of concrete.
Clean, hard and impermeable platform should be use for mixing the concrete.
Prepare so much quantity of concrete that it can be used
in 45 minutes.
Dont use that concrete after 45 minutes or dont mix
that concrete with new concrete because it has lost his
strength.
Mix the cement and sand first with help of shovels until
the mixture attain a uniform color.
Crush is then added to the mixture and the whole
mixture is turned by shovels three times until the stone pieces are uniformly spread
throughout.
Mixture of the concrete collected like a heap and water is
added to whole heap.
Now the water should be added to the dry mix concrete
constituents.
The quantity of water should not be more than five to six
tin (5 kg empty oil tin) for one bag cement (50 kg) in concrete.
If the sand or gravel are wet water quantity should be reduce because excess of
water is harmful for the strength of the concrete.

b. Mixer machine:
While using mixing machine for concrete mixing.1st put the aggregates
in the mixer, 2nd put the sand and then cement in the mixer machine. Then start the mixing and

add the water measuring water with the 5 kg oil tin and mixing time should be 2 minutes.
Machine mixing is more useful than hand mixing.
5- Concrete mixing ratio:
Concrete ingredients are mix
together in different ratio. The ingredients are measure by
volume or by weight. But usually in Malakand division
volume measurement are used. In PCC road construction
1:2:4 and 1:4:8 ratios are used for concrete work. 1:2:4
means 1 part cement, 2 part sand and 4 parts crush.
Usually the people use wheel
barrow for measurement of concrete ingredients. It is not
the best way for measurement; every wheel barrow is not
of same size. A measuring box which has the length 12 inch,
width 12 and depth 15 inches which is equal to the volume
of one bag of cement should be used.
For lean concrete 1:4:8 the cement
should be one bag, sand should be four box and crush
should be eight boxes, and for PCC 1:2:4 should be one bag
cement ,two boxes sand and four boxes crush boxes.

6-Concrete placing:
In PCC road construction concrete placing is a very important step,
proper care should be taken in this step. Which are as below?
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Sides formwork of PCC should be done before placing the concrete.

All formwork should fix in place that it can support the concrete.
Dont fall the concrete more than 5 ft height.
If the height of fall is more than 5 feet Shute
should be use.
5- Prepare so much quantity of concrete which
should be use in 45 minutes.
6- Pour the concrete in formwork and ramming
it with steel rod.
7- Level the upper surface with trowel.
8- Construction joint should be provided at end
of each day work.
9- Expansion and contraction joint should be
providing transversally.
10- Expansion and contraction should be
providing at every 15 to 20 feet.
11- Contraction and expansion joint should be made within 6 to 12 hours after concrete
placing.
12- The depth of expansion and contraction joint should be
of the thickness of the slab.
13- People can use the pcc road after 1 to 3 days as foot walk
when concrete work complete.
14- After 5 to 7 days can use for light weight motor car
movement.

Curing of the concrete:

Curing is the process in which
the concrete is protected from loss of moisture and kept
within a reasonable temperature range. If concrete is no
properly cured it will begin to cracks and weaken the pcc
road. Concrete curing should be done for 14 days.
Curing should be done by sprinkling
water on concrete surface or making sand pond on it.
After 24 hours, small ponds of sand are built across and
along the pavements. The area is thus divided into a
number of rectangles. The water is filled between the
ponds. The filling of water in these ponds is done twice or
thrice a day, depending upon the atmospheric conditions.