Trenchless Education

The word ‘Education’ is derived from the Latin ‘educere’ with prefix ‘e’ meaning “out” and ‘ducere’ meaning “to lead” and composite meaning “to draw out”. Educational activities in any of the field or areas are the attempts to lead or “draw out” the innate abilities of the students. I am using the term innate because one is born with these abilities it is only the drawing out such abilities is the aim of educating. In case of Trenchless Education IndSTT is executing actions in India and South Asian nations as the apex organization for Trenchless Technology. We have taken several actions to assist the spread of Trenchless Education in our region since the last issue of NDI and I am reporting those. These actions range from establishment of Training and R&D centres with Governmental help, to conducting events, to International networking, to establishing codes of practices and a brief is discussed here.

Last year IndSTT had submitted a proposal to All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) for establishing a Trenchless Technology R&D centre jointly under their NAFETIC scheme. You would be pleased to know that the proposal was accepted for the initial short listing. In line with the requirements, we have submitted the detailed project report (DPR) for the centre christened as National Habitat Centre on Subsurface and Trenchless Technology to AICTE. The centre is proposed to be established at Vidisha, M.P. jointly with six other partnering institutions which include CIDC, HUDCO, RGPV, SATI, CETDEC, & I.T.SC. The centre is proposed with six facilities for various training and R&D activities. Another training school establishment activity got a major fillip when Government of Haryana has handed over the Industrial Training Institute (ITI), at Palwal to CIDC at a well televised function at Chandigarh on 31st January 06. IndSTT is establishing a School of Trenchless Technology in this ITI for training workers in TT sector.

We also organized three seminars on Green Construction in different state capitals jointly with CIDC and ICC during this period. The first was organized at New Delhi on 13th January, 06, second at Bhopal on 15th & 16th February, 06 and the third on 21st and 22nd March, 06 at Ahmedabad. Each of these events saw a gathering of 100-150 peoples. Out of these seminars at New Delhi and Bhopal were international seminars with participants for different European nations. At Bhopal, CIDC & IndSTT jointly with Glasgow Caledonian University have instituted a Green award for best environment friendly practices.

On international front, IndSTT organized an open house jointly with Japan Society for Trenchless Technology at Tokyo on 18th January, 06. The event saw me and my counterpart Mr. Morita assisted by Ms. Kyoko Kondo interacting with the members of JSTT. The thrust of the open house was to seek associations for Indian stakeholders for Trenchless projects, training of Indian engineers and operators with JSTT members and other related activities. The event was well attended and aimed at positive results.

Due to our sustained promotional thrust, few of the major operating stakeholders, who were contemplating to join the IndSTT, took the membership of the society during this period. Major of those are Simplex Infrastructure Limited, M/s R.P. Shah, Patel Engineering Co. apart from others.

Readers who are keeping track of our activities would recall that IndSTT has been involved in the preparation of Code of Practice for Laying of pipelines for Natural Gas by Bureau of Indian Standards. During this period IndSTT provided its final comment set to BIS on the basis of the comments received by it. A special note of thanks for the major contributors to these comments is for Prof. Dietrich Stein from Ruhr University, who is one of the world renowned figures in Trenchless Technology education and author of several books and reference manuals, Dr. Mohammad Najafi from Michigan State University, who is the Director, Centre for Underground Infrastructure Research & Education (CUIRE) and again has authored several Trenchless Books and Publications. Both of these continued interacting with us to finalize the comments.

On the forthcoming actions front, IndSTT has been invited to participate in the 2nd International Conference on Trenchless Technology in Kielace, Poland as the official guests by its organizers PFTT (Polish Foundation for Trenchless Technology). IndSTT is exploring possibilities of technical cooperation with PFTT in trenchless educational activities in India.

Another proposed event is the two day seminar at Bhopal for Awareness of Trenchless Technology for urban engineers.

On educational front, another activity of IndSTT during this period was the compilation of the International Event calendar where the salient features of Trenchless Event this year have been detailed. These events provide opportunities for technical skill & knowledge enhancement, growth of awareness and at times networking opportunities. The international event calendar is now being circulated on request. A copy is also hosted on our website.

Indian markets also had one of the major microtunneling contract invited during this period. It is the Numaligarh – Siliguri Pipeline project where the gas pipelines have to cross seven different rivers in Assam. With a deep scour levels and longer crossing lengths the project is going to be challenging.

On local market side two major developments have taken place. First is TT UK joining hands with MCM Worldwide Pvt. Ltd and the second is Vermeer Indian dealership becoming Vermeer Mathur (See advertisements). We wish both the companies good luck in their future endeavours.

*-*-*-*-*