In the present scenario of India's development, a need arises to expand the transportation facilities. This led to emphasize on the improved road connectivity, thereby construction of pavements on the weak subgrades. This paper focuses on the small scale field studies done on flexible pavements laid over problematic soft marine clays which have a tendency for catastrophic failure. This study is an attempt to minimize the risk factors during sudden failure of pavements in such problematic soils. Three test sections were studied and reported. The subbase course and base course were kept constant as per the standard specifications for all the test sections. The three test sections were constructed using untreated soft clay subgrade (Test section 1), soft marine clay treated with lime and cement (Test section 2) and geotextile reinforcement between the subgrade and subbase course (Test section 3) respectively. Cyclic plate load tests were conducted during dry and wet seasons, and the elastic deformations were recorded. The overlay thickness was designed according to IRC:81–1997 by converting the plate load elastic deformations into Benkelman deformations from the graphs available in literature. Test section-3 required a significantly smaller overlay thickness compared to the other two test sections resulting in a better performance. Economic analysis showed that the overall cost of construction decreased by 21 and 26% for test sections 2 and 3, respectively, when compared to test section 1. From the economical analysis, the test section 3 was proved to be economical and the treatment of the subgrade in combination with geotextiles layer was effective.