NHAI makes drone survey compulsory for all NH projects

Our Bureau Updated - June 16, 2021 at 07:55 PM.

Videos will be stored permanently on the ‘Data Lake’

BANGALORE,10.12.2010:NELAMANGALA AND YESHWANTHPUR ( NATIONAL HIGHWAY-4):The much-awaited 4.5-km stretch of elevated highway between Nelamangala and Yeshwanthpur (CMTI) junction on Tumkur Road, National Highway-4 (NH-4), thrown open to vehicular traffic finally, after being ready for nearly 3 months, in Bangalore on 11 December, 2010, reducing to a mere 10 minutes travel time between Nelamangala and Yeshwantpur that used to take more than an hour. Elevated expressway part of the access-controlled corridor built at the cost of Rs 720-crore, with stretch of 19.5 km, combining the newly-constructed expressway and access-controlled road, will benefit an estimated 1.2 lakh commuters heading towards West, North Karnataka and further to Pune and Mumbai and other parts of North India every day. This six-lane axis control toll road leading to Nelamangala from central and Eastern part of the city, will provide commuters seamless connectivity along a four-lane main carriageway, three-lane service road and four-lane elevated expressway. NHAI officials will prohibit two-wheeler, Autorickshaw on this stretch, once toll collection starts. The stretch below the elevated road will continue to be toll free as it comes under the City limits, but motorists have to pay the toll on the main road beyond the City limits. However, those coming to the City will have to bear the brunt of traffic flow at snail’s pace for some more time as the ongoing work on Metro rail project has caused bottlenecks at Goraguntepalya (ORR) Junction, which is also a point of convergence into a single stretch. Photo K. Murali Kumar

National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on Wednesday made mandatory the use of drones for monthly video recordings of all national highway projects during all stages of a project implementation — development, construction, operation and maintenance.

Apart from this, deployment of Network Survey Vehicle (NSV) has also been made it mandatory to carry out road condition surveys on the national highways to enhance quality.

Supervision consultants shall analyse these videos and will provide their comments on the digital monthly progress reports covering various aspects of the project development.

To be used during inspection

These videos will also be used by NHAI officials during the physical inspection of the projects to check the discrepancies and rectifications made on the basis of the earlier observations, informed an official statement.

Contractors and concessionaires shall carry out the drone video recording in presence of Team Leader of the Supervision Consultant and upload comparative project videos of the current and last month on NHAI’s portal ‘Data Lake’, capturing various project related developments during the month.

Since these videos will be permanently stored on the ‘Data Lake’, they can also be used as evidence during the dispute resolution process before Arbitral Tribunals and Courts.

Also read: NHAI declares Gayatri Projects as non-performer

Additionally, Project Directors of NHAI shall undertake monthly drone surveys from the date of signing of contract agreement till start of construction of the project at site and at the completion of the project. NHAI is committed to adhere to the highest quality standards during construction of projects, it added.

Recently, NHAI has introduced independent inspection of the ongoing National Highways projects, by involving reputed retired government officials. These inspections are held in addition to the regular inspection of the projects by NHAI officials.

The quality inspections not only ensure adherence to standards but also verify compliance to specific contractual requirements and good engineering practices, it said.

Published on June 16, 2021 14:16