Cement Concrete Road BOQ — Worked Example for a 1 km × 5.5 m PMGSY-Spec Road

Rigid (cement-concrete) roads built per IRC 58 are the durable, low-maintenance alternative to bituminous pavements — used wherever heavy vehicular loading, long lifespan, or zero re-surfacing matters more than initial cost. AMRUT urban roads, industrial corridor access, port and airport approach roads, factory roads, multi-storey-residential gated colonies, and increasingly PMGSY rural roads in plain terrain all use CC instead of BT. This article walks through a complete BOQ for a 1 km × 5.5 m PMGSY-grade concrete road, item by item.

Project Scenario

You're estimating a PMGSY internal village road: 1 km long, 5.5 m carriageway (the PMGSY-standard width for inter-village links), 225 mm Granular Sub-Base + 150 mm Dry Lean Concrete + 200 mm Pavement Quality Concrete with dowel + tie bars at joints, and brick edging on both shoulders. Total compacted thickness 575 mm.

Design specification at a glance

• Length: 1.0 km (1,000 m)
• Carriageway width: 5.5 m (PMGSY-2 standard)
• GSB: 225 mm thick, 6.1 m wide (carriageway + 300 mm each shoulder)
• DLC sub-base: 150 mm thick, 5.8 m wide
• PQC slab: 200 mm M40 design-mix, 5.5 m wide
• Dowel + tie bars: ~12 kg per m³ of PQC (Fe-500D)
• Brick edging: both shoulders for full 1 km (2,000 running metres)

The Complete BOQ — 5 Items Only

One of the appealing things about a concrete road BOQ is how few line items it has — five items capture the entire structure. Compare this with bituminous roads (typically 7-9 items: subgrade, GSB, WMM, prime coat, tack coat, DBM, BC, seal coat, marking).

The live BOQ Builder evaluates these formulas in real time — change carriageway width, layer thicknesses, or skip brick edging, and the quantities update instantly.

How Each Quantity Was Computed

1. Granular Sub-Base — Item 16.78.2

GSB extends 300 mm beyond the carriageway on each side to anchor the edge restraints:

GSB width = 5.5 + 2 × 0.30 = 6.1 m
GSB volume = 1000 × 6.1 × 0.225 = 1,372.5 m³

2. Dry Lean Concrete sub-base — Item 16.80

DLC extends 150 mm beyond the carriageway on each side (less than GSB because DLC is a structural-but-not-load-distributing layer):

DLC width = 5.5 + 2 × 0.15 = 5.8 m
DLC volume = 1000 × 5.8 × 0.15 = 870 m³

Why DLC is mandatory under PQC: PQC is rigid pavement concrete (M-40 design mix, 28-day flexural ≥ 4.5 MPa, very low water-cement ratio). Casting M-40 directly on GSB or subgrade causes two problems — (a) fines pumping, where rainfall + capillarity carries fine-grained subgrade up through the GSB into the slab joint, eroding the supporting layer and causing slab deflection; (b) moisture content fluctuation, where M-40 cures unevenly on a wet vs dry ground. DLC is an M-10 grade low-strength concrete layer that acts as both an impermeable barrier and a uniform curing platform. IRC 58 mandates 100-200 mm of DLC under all PQC pavements.

3. PQC pavement slab — Item 5.3

PQC volume = length × carriageway width × slab thickness
= 1000 × 5.5 × 0.20 = 1,100 m³

Note on DSR code: the BOQ Builder uses DSR 5.3 (RCC beams/floors M20) as the closest in-DSR rate for PQC paving. Actual PQC rate is typically 10-15 % lower than this — slip-form paving has much higher labour productivity than column or beam casting. For accurate tender estimation, swap the rate manually if your SOR has a dedicated PQC item (most state SORs and MoRTH SORs do).

4. Dowel + tie steel — Item 5.22.6

PQC is plain concrete; no mesh / mat reinforcement. The 12 kg/m³ allowance covers only the dowel bars at transverse contraction joints (32 mm × 500 mm @ 300 mm c/c, every 4.5 m along the road) and tie bars at longitudinal joints (12 mm × 640 mm @ 550 mm c/c on lane joints):

Steel = PQC volume × 12 = 1,100 × 12 = 13,200 kg (13.2 tonnes)

For 2-lane roads (7.0 m carriageway with a central longitudinal joint), add ~10 % for additional tie bars at the central joint.

5. Brick edging on both shoulders — Item 16.7.1

Edge length = 2 × road length = 2 × 1000 = 2,000 m

Concrete vs Bituminous — When to Use Which

Concrete (rigid) — 25-40 year lifespan, very low maintenance (joint sealant every 5-7 years), high initial cost (₹85-110 lakh / km), high load capacity. Best for industrial roads, port and airport access, urban arterials, gated-society internal roads, salt-spray coastal sites.

Bituminous (flexible) — 10-15 year design life, periodic overlay every 5-7 years, lower initial cost (₹55-70 lakh / km), more sensitive to overload. Best for PMGSY rural roads under normal traffic, state PWD inter-village links, residential colonies, normal traffic up to 1,500 commercial vehicles/day.

Cross-over point: when traffic > 4,500 cv/day, or specialised loading (containers, hot-mix-plant approach), or coastal salt-spray, prefer concrete. Otherwise bituminous wins on initial cost. On a 30-year life-cycle-cost basis concrete usually wins regardless — the savings on periodic BC overlay vastly exceed the higher first-cost.

What This BOQ Excludes

• Subgrade earthwork — cut/fill depends on terrain and is quoted under DSR 2.X based on actual longitudinal profile
• Joint sealant — silicone or hot-applied bitumen, ₹50-80 per running metre of joint, ~₹40-60k per km
• Saw-cut grooves for transverse and longitudinal joints (joint formation is critical for crack control)
• Curing membrane / 7-day water curing
• Reflective markers on transverse joints (visibility for night driving + wet conditions)
• Line marking — centre line + edge lines
• Signage + delineators
• Gully gratings + storm drains — quote separately under RCC drain BOQ

Common Estimation Mistakes

• Over-specifying PQC thickness — 200 mm is adequate for rural and industrial roads; 150 mm works for light residential traffic; only NH/SH and port-access need 250-300 mm. Each 50 mm increment adds ≈ ₹4 lakh/km in concrete cost.
• Skipping DLC because "the GSB is good" — false economy. Saves ₹1.5 lakh/km on the sub-base but fails the pavement within 5 years from pumping cracks.
• Using single-lane width with future-widening claim — joint design for future-widened lanes is critical. PMGSY 3.75 m roads that get widened to 5.5 m typically need full re-PQC of the widened strip, not just an additional lane bolted on.
• Forgetting joint sealant + saw-cut in the BOQ — these are tiny line items individually (~₹40-60k/km combined) but if you forget them at tender, the contractor will skip them and your slab will crack in 12-18 months.
• Treating PQC steel like a regular RCC slab — PQC has NO mesh reinforcement, only dowel + tie bars at joints. Stating "100 kg/m³ steel" inflates the BOQ by ₹4-5 lakh/km vs the correct ~12 kg/m³.

What Changes for a Different Road

• 2-lane road (7.0 m carriageway) — central longitudinal joint adds ~10 % tie bars; GSB and DLC widths scale to 7.6 m and 7.3 m respectively.
• Heavy industrial (300 mm PQC) — slab volume increases 50 %, steel increases proportionally.
• NH/SH carriageway — DLC bumps to 200 mm, PQC to 300 mm, brick edging replaced by precast kerb stones (DSR 16.69), full traffic-management overlay added.
• Urban road with precast kerb — swap brick edging item 16.7.1 for DSR 16.69 (precast concrete kerb) — typically ~₹10,100 per m³ in DSR 2023.
• State-PWD SOR rates — switch from CPWD DSR to Maharashtra DSR / Karnataka SR / Rajasthan BSR / etc for state-specific market rates. Most state SORs run 8-15 % below CPWD.

Get Your Road's Cost in 30 Seconds

References & Companion Reading

• IRC 58:2015 — Guidelines for the Design of Plain Jointed Rigid Pavements for Highways (the master spec for CC roads in India)
• IRC 15:2017 — Construction of Cement Concrete Pavements
• IS 456:2000 — Plain and Reinforced Concrete (concrete grades, cover, mix proportions)
• IS 1200 Part 16:1979 — Method of Measurement for Road Works
• MoRTH SOR — Ministry of Road Transport & Highways Schedule of Rates (uses dedicated PQC items)
• CPWD DSR 2023 — full SOR with rates by item
• Sister tool: Bituminous Road BOQ Builder — for the flexible-pavement comparison