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The Hindu

There is a need to ramp up research to cater to the growing demands of infrastructure sector, says Chennai Metro official

CHENNAI There should be a quantum leap in efforts to improve infrastructure, T. Archunan, director (projects), Chennai Metro Rail Limited said here on Wednesday. Speaking at the diamond jubilee conference on 'Monitoring, Assessment and Predictive Maintenance of Critical Infrastructures, i-MAP 2025' organised by CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre (SERC), he said, SERC was a great institution and there was a need to have more such institutes in the country. But he noted that institutions like SERC, IITs and the other labs have to ramp up to meet the growing demand in the infrastructure sector. The research institutes are not adequate to meet the demands of infrastructure projects. 'We don't have tunnel codes. We have to improve our theory to suit our execution,' he said. Ravindra Kumar Goel, principal executive director (bridges), Ministry of Railways, Rail Bhavan, said, they were maintaining and sustaining very old structures with care, even as the expansion of the railway network was under way. 'There are nearly 34,000 bridges which are more than 100 years old, and we have to sustain them. It is not easy,' he said. There was a need to integrate with SERC, IITs or other academic institutions which could help with mitigating problems in the maintenance of infrastructure, he said and noted that for the Pamban bridge, the health monitoring system instrumentation was provided by the SERC. Srinivas Voggu, chief scientist, CSIR-SERC and organiser of i-MAP 2025 said, over decades, SERC has been carrying out design and performance assessment of critical infrastructure in the country. N. Anandavalli, director CSIR-SERC also spoke during the occasion.