Thiruvananthapuram: There has never been a foolproof mechanism to check the quality of a major public work, whether the right kind of bitumen for a road or the adequate quantity of reinforcement steel for a school building was used, before money is transferred to the contractor.
It was convenient for officials to believe what the contractor claimed because the alternative was to pickaxe a finished road or knock a part of a new building. Now, Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board is all set to make contractors sweat.
The Board has lined up some of the most advanced equipments to assess the quality of a public work without causing any damage. These ‘X-Ray’-based non-destructive testing equipment will be star attractions of what KIIFB’s chief project examiner, Mr Vijayadas, calls the Quality Control Studio.
The Studio will have a ‘ground penetrating radar’, a pushcart like device that will send electromagnetic radiation underground to test the quality of various layers of road construction.
It will assess the metal grade, the degree of metal compaction, and also the type of macadam and concrete bitumen.
“If the signals do not conform to standards we will use a ‘core cutting machine’ to extract a cylindrical portion out of the road for detailed analysis,” Mr Vijayadas said.
KIIFB's quality inspectors will also be armed with a 'rebar locator', a device the size of a walkie-talkie that provides accurate images of embedded objects in concrete slabs, walls, or ceilings. Yet another is a 'rebound hammer'. The device looks like a mid-size flask with a dot-pen like, but thicker, projection at the tip. It measures the elastic properties or strength of concrete.
Drones will be used in a big way to assess the geometric features (like alignment, crossing and gradient) of long-distance roads. These state-of-the-art drones will take high-resolution stereoscopic images. "It will also allow our team at the headquarters to supervise KIIFB's field-level staff, provide them with something like on-field coaching," KIIFB's chief project examiner said.
Any adverse remarks about a project by the KIIFB's inspection team will automatically put on hold payments to the contractor or the vendor. "We will reach a stage where a contractor who does KIIFB work cannot do bad work," Mr Vijayadas said.
