Drones used to ensure no environmental violations on new Central Railway line

Central Railway (CR) used drones to survey the proposed 27km Seawoods-Uran line to assure the state government that no environmental violations have occurred during construction. The reason behind this move was that the forest department is yet to approve a 3km stretch that has trees and marshes.

CR chief public relations officer Narendra Patil confirmed the survey and said, “The survey was conducted to get the position of the work that has been underway for more than a year.”

An official on condition of anonymity said that chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had been promised regular updates in the form of aerial photographs of how the work would be done.

The official added, “Also, it will be important to show the state the work as it progresses. For example, we can show photographs of the work done till date and then again in December.” Sources said the drones clicked photographs of every two km and the cost of the entire exercise worked out to nearly Rs 1.9lakh.

Meanwhile, the date of completion of the project has been pushed from end of 2017 to end of 2018.