Editorial

The latest issue of No Dig India is in your hands. There have been several major developments since the last issue, which have significance for the Indian Trenchless Fraternity in general and INDSTT in particular.

First and the foremost is the regularization of the training activities which turn helped us to develop several Trenchless publications for sensitizing the users. The next gain was the association with Stein & Partner, Germany which are one of the best publishing houses on trenchless books. Under this association IndSTT is currently marketing tow of their best sellers. In this issue you will find the details of all these books.

Another related gain was our invitation to the TNUDP-III training panel in which we are expected to assist the project authorities in training the elected representatives of the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and engineers. This is a World Bank Assisted Urban Development project in Tamil Nadu and by this training we can help the user sensitization in a great way. You can find an article about one of the package in this issue of NDI.

The last year also saw the inclusion of IndSTT in an ISTT sponsored project titled IPOTT (Influencing Pan-National Funding Organisations to Support the Adoption of Trenchless Technology in Developing Nations). Under this project, where I am the member secretary, we are aiming to form an alliance to promote Trenchless Technology in the developing nations.

Another activity undertaken by us was the support to the PMC, National River Conservation Directorate (NRCD), Ministry of Environment, Government of India for Dissemination of Trenchless Technology to the stakeholders.

In addition to the education activities INDSTT was also involved in the regulatory activities. This was through the inclusion of IndSTT in the Panel to draft the Code of Practice for Laying Natural Gas Pipelines by the Bureau of Indian Standard. IndSTT has been invited since there is no Code of Practice of Pipelines in crossings and trenchless techniques. I wish to thank all the international associates like Prof. Sterling, Dr. Dec Downey, Prof. Mohammad Najafi, Prof. Sanjiv Gokhale, Prof. Dietrich Stein, Mr. David Toms, Mr. Terry Davis apart from others who have provided substantial inputs for these codes. Based on their inputs we are now compiling the Code of Practice for three major techniques, HDD, Horizontal Auger Boring and Pipe Ramming. We will be developing more codes of practice and I invite you to join us in this important activity for a widely evaluated code of practices. You may send me your interest statements which I will be waiting for.

On networking front we were successful to initiate the representative office in Sudan where post oil discovery trenchless application growth is expected.

On the Society’s structure part we saw the superannuation of our founder Chairman Mr. A.K. Sarkar. Mr. Chander Verma who has been the Vice Chairman till now was elected the chairman for the remaining period of the Governing Council. During this year we also saw the inclusion of Lt. General Ranjit Singh, SM, E-in-Chief, Indian Army in the Governing council. He has replaced Lt. General Mathew Memon, the last E-in-C. Superannuation of Mr. Sarkar as the Chaiman Emeritus has also led to nomination of two new Vice Chairmen, Dr. P.S. Rana, CMD HUDCO, and Lt. Gen. Ranjit Singh, SM. Mr. K.B. Dubey, Director (CMG), NTPC, and Mr. S.M. Kava, Prop. Urmi Enterprise, joined our Governing Council. We hope to work with a renewed vigour under the new leadership. A detailed list of Governing Council members is hosted on our website.

On future prospects I would like to mention that last year on 3rd December our Hon’ble Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh launched an ambitious project to renew the urban settings. This means a huge demand of services in the trenchless sector is going to come up. This growth I feel is going to be explosive, as even just at the beginning I have seen several invitations for consultancy services for city development plans, which is the first step of NURM. To know more about NURM from the perspective of a Trenchless Technologist read the related article in this issue. You may also visit our website where a detailed presentation on NURM is hosted.

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