Drone Survey Mandatory for All National Highways Projects

Drone Survey Mandatory for All National Highways Projects

Part of: GS Prelims and GS III – Infrastructure

In news 

• The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has made use of drones mandatory for video recording of the national highway projects during different stages of development, construction, operation and maintenance.
• These videos will be saved on NHAI’s portal “Data Lake” to assess the progress made on the projects.

Significance

• Enhance transparency and uniformity.
• The videos can be used during the physical inspection of the projects.
• They can also be used as evidence during the dispute resolution process before Arbitral Tribunals and Courts.
• The mandatory deployment of Network Survey Vehicle (NSV) to carry out road condition surveys on the National Highways will enhance the overall quality of the highways.

About National Highways Authority of India (NHAI)

• NHAI was set up under NHAI Act, 1988.
• It has been entrusted with the National Highways Development Project (NHDP), along with other minor projects for development, maintenance and management.
• NHAI maintains the National Highways network to global standards and in a cost effective manner

NHAI’s Portal “Data Lake”

• NHAI has gone ‘Fully Digital’ with the launch of Data Lake and Project Management Software.
• It is cloud based and Artificial Intelligence powered Big Data Analytics platform
• All project documentation, contractual decisions and approvals are now done through the portal only.