The Hindu 25.02.2010
Geographic information technologies useful
Staff Reporter
| Railway officials undergoing training |
TRAINING: Chief Engineer, Construction (Survey and Road Bridges), Southern Railway, Chennai, Anil Kumar Khandelwal speaking at the inauguration of a training programme on “Application of geographic information technologies for Railway projects” at Bharathidasan University in Tiruchi.
TIRUCHI: The basic level training for a team of Southern Railway personnel on “Application of Geographic Information Technologies for Railway Projects” that got under way at the Bharathidasan University here on Monday is aimed at enlightening the trainees about geographic information technologies and the ways in which it could be made use of during planning, survey and execution of new broad gauge lines and doubling projects.
The five-day theoretical and practical training using high-end desktop computers with state-of-the-art software facilities will cover a gamut of aspects including fundamentals of remote sensing and pre-processing of satellite imagery; extraction of railway features such as track, bridge and culvert along railway line; capturing spatial features through Global Positioning System; Remote Sensing Data Processing and preparation of Land Plan Schedule for new broad gauge line project through Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis and features identification along railway track using GIS.
Ten technical personnel from the Southern Railway Construction Organisation are attending the training which is conducted by the Centre for Geographic Information Technologies (CGIT) of Bharathidasan University and sponsored by the Southern Railway.
In his inaugural address, Chief Engineer, Construction (Survey and Road Bridges), Southern Railway, Chennai, Anil Kumar Khandelwal said use of geographic information technologies such as GIS and Remote Sensing Data Processing would be of great help to the railways while conducting survey for railway projects and for refining the alignment accordingly without causing much disturbance to the existing installations along the proposed route.
Most railway projects were pending for want of land, he said adding that geographic information technologies were being used by the railways in patches. Use of such technologies would help in expediting the projects, he added. CGIT Coordinator Dr. S. Vasudevan said the centre had been awarded seven projects that includes a project for reorganising the polling stations in Tamil Nadu for which funds of Rs. 2.77 crore had been granted. University Registrar T. Ramaswamy and K. Kumarasamy, Professor & Head, Department of Geography, Bharathidasan University, spoke on the occasion. Later, in an informal chat with reporters, Mr. Khandelwal said preliminary engineering-cum-traffic survey was being conducted for a new line from Karaikudi to Kanyakumari via Ramanathapuram and Tuticorin.
