|
NHAI turns to GIS
Building, managing and maintaining India’s road infrastructure
is a gigantic task. GIS has been used to tame the problem of monitoring the
National Highway Development Project, says Srikanth R P
 |
Technologies such as data sharing and mobile computing
have brought significant advantages to the NHD project, says Atul Kumar |
Infrastructure stands high on the agenda of any government. The Indian government
has allocated around Rs 54,000 crore on building the ambitious ‘Golden
Quadrilateral’ and the ‘North-South, East-West corridors’ measuring
around 13,146 km. This project called the National Highway Development Project
(NHDP) is one of the largest highway development projects in the world. The
task for pulling it off has been entrusted to National Highway Authority of
India (NHAI). The Golden Quadrilateral project involves the construction of
a high-density corridor connecting Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. The project
is half way through and is expected to be completed by year end. Another project,
the North-South-East-West component involves building 7,300 kms in the specified
region, to be completed by 2007. In addition, NHAI has also been entrusted with
10,000 kms of national highways to be undertaken by private sector parties on
a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis.
These being time-bound projects, NHAI has to interact with a host of vendors
and partners (across different projects) and share data in real time to enable
timely completion. For example, NHAI has to exchange data with a number of organisations
both in India and abroad. These organisations include consultants, government
organisations, contractors and funding agencies such as the World Bank and the
Asian Development Bank. These entities need to access and share the most up-to-date
information from their headquarters and from remote onsite locations.
Even the type of data being exchanged is complex ranging
from heavy design data files, bills of material and progress reports. These
data formats need to be modified in turn and shared in real time with team members
at different locations. While these files are too big to be sent over e-mail,
shipping them is time consuming and expensive. NHAI needed a system wherein
it could not only collaborate in real time and share design specifications but
also help in sending detailed project reports to funding agencies.
For a country that has traditionally built only 556 km of four lane roads between
1947 to 1997 translating to about 11 km of four lane roads every year, this
ambitious project translates to 11 km of roads being built daily. Is this mission
possible? While these projects would have sounded like ‘Mission Impossible’
in the past, modern technologies enabled NHAI to effectively monitor and maintain
the projects under development.
For its design and mapping work, it adopted Autodesk’s AutoCad, Map and
MapGuide. Today, it extensively uses GIS (geographical information systems)-based
tools from Autodesk to monitor the progress and maintenance of highway-related
work. The same tools let NHAI’s project partners share and change design
specifications instead of using e-mail, fax or the telephone. The GIS based
tools also allow the NHAI to record details on the maintenance schedules of
each segment, quantity of material used, labour involved and even cross check
the same with characteristics of a road such as elevation, curves and declines.
This effectively means that on a single console, the NHAI can monitor the progress
and maintenance of various projects.
Says Atul Kumar, chief general manager, IT and Planning, NHAI, “Internet-based
technologies such as data sharing and mobile computing have brought significant
advantages to this project.” Besides the timely submission of detailed
project reports to agencies such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank,
the mobile field force can access the latest design drawings and bills of material
with the ability to make changes. This has translated into significant savings
in costs which would have been incurred if these maps had to be shipped physically.
Additionally, the ability to maintain updated bills of material results in the
economical ordering of material and equipment by contractors as there is no
need to stock raw material.
Says Frank Sgammotta, sales development director, Autodesk, South Asia Pacific,
“The NHAI project is on par with any other project of the same magnitude
world-wide in terms of quality and technology deployment.”
In the future, NHAI proposes to use Autodesk’s solutions in developing
a Road Information System (RIS), an integrated system for collecting and storing
highway related data. The RIS is a national level information system that reviews
the condition of the national highways and prioritises them for maintenance
and upgradation. The entire solution is proposed to be GIS-based and will be
posted on the Web for effective
monitoring.
srikanth@expresscomputeronline.com
|
