40 PROjECT PRIDE
by the corporate affairs team. The proposed area for Project
Pride at Rajgangpur was covered with dense bushes and trees
with no clear line of sight for carrying out a conventional
topographical survey, making the same a challenging task.
An added constraint was a low lying wastewater pond with
a danger of reptiles, putting the safety of ground team at
risk. Also, there was a high probability of errors getting
incorporated in surveyed data.
The challenge was overcome with the use of advanced
technology of Aerial Photogrammetric Survey using a
drone. It was for the first time in the cement industry
that an engineering grade ground survey was conducted
by a drone for a new project. The survey required just
two surveyors who flew the drone from a safe location, all
above the area, at pre-planned and configured flight lines
making it perfectly safe. Thousands of overlapping HD
images were taken in and all images were geotagged with
a universal coordinate system through GPS. The images
were then combined in special software to produce 2D
and 3D models of high quality which provided complete
{x-y-z} coordinate details of all points of the surveyed
area. The task was thus achieved in almost half time, 20%
cost and with much higher quality data. The survey was
also extended to derive 3D models of existing line 1 & 2,
mines area. We also utilized this technology regularly to
capture progress of the project.
At the project concept stage, the railway siding for
Dalmia DSP project at Rajgangpur was envisaged through
an extension of existing track 4 in line 1. The alignment was