New Delhi-based Indian Railway said they will use drones to assess the construction progress of all of the roughly 170 projects that they currently have underway, according to a report by Press Trust of India.
Railway officials said they recently used an unmanned aerial vehicle to successfully inspect the ongoing construction work on the railway’s broad gauge, mega rail Dedicated Freight Corridor project.
According to PTI, the drone was hired from a private operator and was used for three days. It covered a total of 98 km (about 61 miles) at a cost of about $45US/km (or $72/mile).
“We used a drone to ascertain the progress on the 42 km long track between Baghega to Srimadhopur in Rajasthan in the Western DFC and also the 56 km long line between Durgawati and Sasaram in Bihar,” DFC Managing Director Adesh Sharma said.
Pleased with the results, railway officials said that all ongoing construction projects will now be monitored through aerial survey. The public sector behemoth has also decided to use drones to assess the ground situation in the aftermath of train accidents, PTI reported.
Railway officials said that the Durgawati-Sasaram section that was surveyed by drone is complete, now awaiting safety clearance before being commissioned.
“It becomes easier and faster to prepare the status report of an ongoing project through drone. Field work can be monitored from the office using the drone footage,” said Sharma.
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