NEW DELHI: To keep a tab on development of national highway projects and their time-bound execution, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has mandated monthly aerial surveys of the sites using drones.
Periodic capturing of high-resolution imagery of projects under Operation and Maintenance category will also be done after every six months.
“With the objective of bringing transparency, uniformity and the use of latest technology, it has been made mandatory to capture high resolution imagery of the entire ROW (right of way) through drones, which would show the progress of the projects and the condition of the roads,” said officials.
The NHAI has already empanelled drone service providers for the video recording and also revised its standard operating procedure for this.
According to an NHAI circular, the survey should be completed in the last week of every month to prepare the monthly progress report. The project directors or regional officers can undertake need-based drone surveys of the project, it said.
Drone surveys will be carried out for all projects, starting from issuance of appointed date till completion of the construction. The projects under the Operation and Maintainence category shall be covered. “The periodicity of drone survey for the projects under implementation shall be ‘monthly’ and for projects under the Operation and Maintanence category will be ‘six-monthly’,” read the note.
Key evidence
The survey or analytical report, along with monthly reports of engineers, will be a permanent record that will facilitate the NHAI to use them as evidence if any dispute arises before the arbitral tribunals or courts.