Use of drone made mandatory for monthly recording of road projects

Drones will play a major role in India’s national highway construction plans. The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) on Wednesday made the use of drones mandatory for a monthly recording of all national highway projects during their different stages of development, construction, operation and maintenance.

The NHAI has mandated that contractors and concessionaires will carry out the drone video recording in the presence of the Supervision Consultant, and upload comparative project videos of the current and previous month on NHAI’s portal ‘Data Lake’, capturing all project-related developments in a month.

Supervision consultants will analyse these video recordings and provide their inputs/comments in the digital monthly progress reports covering various aspects of the project development.

“Project Directors of NHAI shall undertake monthly drone survey from the date of signing of contract agreement till the start of construction of the project at site and also on completion of the project. NHAI will also undertake monthly drone survey in all developed projects where NHAI is responsible for operation and maintenance,” the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said in a press note.

Further, mandatory deployment of a Network Survey Vehicle (NSV) to carry out a road condition survey on national highways will enhance the overall quality of the highways as NSV uses the latest survey techniques such as a high-resolution digital camera for 360 degree imagery, Laser Road Profilometer and other latest technology for the measurement of distress in the road surface.

The decision to use  drones comes a day after the Road Transport Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari reviewed the projects and asked the stakeholders including NHAI to put in use technology and innovative ideas to keep a track on the development of the highways and road infrastructure projects across the country.

As part of mission PRAGATI, the Centre has been monitoring the progress of several other major infrastructure projects including Bullet Train, Dedicated Freight Corridors and Ports among others.