National Workshop on Road Asset Management Systems Inaugurated

Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Shri Nitin Gadkari has stressed upon the need to fast pace the development in the road sector in the country. Given the ever increasing pressure of traffic on the Indian roads and the huge number of accidents, the minister said we must greatly hasten the speed for building new roads including express highway networks and widening, maintaining and repairing existing roads. The Minister was speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the National Workshop on Road Asset Management System (RAMS) for National Highways in New Delhi today. NHAI Chairman Shri Raghav Chandra and World Bank Country Director Onno Rulh were also present on the occasion.

Emphasizing the need for a modern, digitalized asset management system for roads, Shri Gadkari said that RAMS that is being developed for all National Highways in the country, is a modern management system that will use GAGAN and BHUVAN satellite systems to prepare a 360 degree mapping of road assets. This will greatly facilitate timely repair of roads, formulation of Detailed Project Reports and such other works.

Also speaking on the occasion, NHAI Chairman, Shri Raghav Chandra said that RAMS is the need of the hour for effective planning, construction, maintenance and financial management of Highways. NHAI is planning to sign MoU with ISRO for adoption of best technologies. The GAGAN (GPS aided Geo Augmented Navigation) will be extremely useful for ensuring that our assets are properly mapped and shared with all the stakeholders and also it can be used to assess the roads constructed as per the design.

Road Asset Management System (RAMS) is being developed for the entire National Highways network in India bringing both public funded and private funded roads under one umbrella. The outcome of this project, which is funded by the World Bank, will assist in the accurate and scientific planning and finalising of road projects, maintenance of roads, executing road safety measures and development of the National Highways network in India. RAMS is being developed using the international best practices. The software has functionality to interface with the indigenous Bhuvan satellite images. The data collected will be stored and managed through a web based application which will be hosted in the public domain. Information collected from this project will be useful for Transport Ministry, Finance Ministry, NHAI, State PWDs, Police Departments, Funding agencies, Developers and Citizens.

The one day workshop is discussing RAMS technical details and monitoring concessionaires obligations through RAMS