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The new 28 km Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway when complete will save time and costs, cut down pollution, and bring India up to speed, says Er JAGVIR GOYAL. Speed is the buzzword for countries on the move. India knows it. Proof: a 28 km long expressway between Delhi and Gurgaon as part of the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) project. The project Called ‘Project Highway’, the expressway is a part of the ambitious National Highway Development Project (NHDP) to develop world class roads with uninterrupted traffic flow. The GQ is a key part of the NHDP, aiming to develop 5,846 km long roads to connect Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. Catering to high traffic volumes to the tune of 1,20,000 vehicles per day with 20 intersections along its 28 km long stretch, the present four-lane NH-8 between Delhi and Gurgaon faces acute congestion, leading to loss of time and fuel besides causing abnormal pollution. The new expressway will cut short the travel time between Delhi and Gurgaon from 65 minutes to 20 minutes flat and would provide easy and uninterrupted access to Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA). To boot, the fuel saving is estimated to be Rs 80,000 million per annum. Thus, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has assigned top priority to it - the foundations are being developed now and it is expected to open in mid 2005. The components The expressway will comprise seven flyovers, five of them with eight lanes, and five underpasses. Service roads provided on both sides of the expressway are mostly 7.5 m wide and amount to a length of 46.84 km to be used by two-wheelers. The width of the median strip is 4 m. Eighty-two per cent of the expressway is eight-laned while the balance is six-laned. And there will be no intersections! To be completed in time, Rs 2,750 million will have to be spent annually for two years. The players Two companies - Jaiprakash Industries Ltd and DS Constructions Ltd - have joined hands in a JV, Jaypee DSC Ventures Ltd (JDVL), to execute the expressway and have paid Rs 610.6 million to NHAI; they will construct, maintain and draw toll tax for a period of 20 years. Since the construction period is included in the 20 year term, it would force the firm to complete the project at the earliest to start recovering its huge investments. The toll The toll rates have also been specified in the agreement between NHAI and JDVL - January 1, 2005 has been fixed as the commercial operation date for toll collection with fees to be shared by both parties if the number of vehicles exceeds a specified number. Three toll plazas have been planned on the expressway - at the road to IGIA, at the Delhi Haryana border, and at the 42 km milestone. Rates are lowest at the airport road entrance and highest at the 42 km point. There is also a provision of concessional fee for local traffic, varying from 50-66 per cent. Of course, for such an expressway to be truly world class, safety measures will need to be taken into account. There must not be any sharp curves, embankments should not be too high, all fixed objects such as trees must be isolated and the movement of two-wheelers and pedestrians should be strictly regulated. If all this is taken care of, India will truly be on the international fast-track! Salient features of the New Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway Cost : Rs 5,550 million Length : 27.70 km Number of lanes : 8/6 8-lane portion : 22.33 km 6-lane portion : 5.37 km Number of flyovers : 7 Number of underpasses : 5 Length of service road : 46.84 km Median strip width : 4.0 m Paved shoulder width : 1.70 m Completion : July 2005 Buildings with Brains The building automation sector is taking off in India. The result is buildings that are smarter, savvier and a pleasure to inhabit, while saving significantly on time, energy and operational costs. Imagine working in a building where your office is ice cold, while your neighbour turns his into a sauna. Where your AC, computer and lights come on the moment you swipe your security card in the lobby. Where the lights change depending on your mood or the time of the day. And where you would be shielded from harm in the event of a natural, chemical or a biological attack. No sci-fi movie this, it could happen. Consider this: the Pentagon opened for business on September 12, 2001, a mere day after terrorists crashed a plane into it. Thanks to a network of automated digital sensors and controllers that let operators close dampers and turn off fans, the fire from the crash was confined to one wedge of the building. Such costly proprietary software may not find its way into your office, but the message is clear: buildings are getting smarter. "The influx of MNCs setting up facilities in India has led to a boom in the building automation sector," says Joseph Pattathu, Director, Dheeraj Consultancy Pvt Ltd. "In order to maintain the minimum standards of automation prevalent globally, they opt for smart automated buildings. The advent of industrial automation tools in buildings is permanently changing the face of the Indian construction industry." What is building automation? "Building automation is a catch-all for a sprawling category of controls and communi-cation techniques that link typical building systems, like electrical distribution, HVAC controls, plumbing, fire detection, security, public address systems, and elevator/escalator systems, which are normally controlled separately to achieve optimisation in transactional cost efficiency," say two senior building control engineers from Tata Honeywell. The company is a pioneer in building automation systems worldwide. "Depending on the size of the utility, the scope of the system that you put in place has to be rationalised with respect to what is really needed for controlling the various parameters in an enterprise." "For an automation system to be really effective, all these smart systems need to be incorporated together on a common platform so that they can be monitored and controlled effectively from a single monitoring point," says Nikhil Trivedi, Director, Automation and Control India Pvt Ltd. His company's list of building automation projects includes the ITC Grand Maratha, Mumbai. Building automation control systems (BACS) have found a perma-nent place in large industrial set-ups like call centres, financial institutions, data management centres, gems and jewellery set-ups, pharma ceutical companies, hotels, the telecom industry, hospitals, and more. Smart solutions: Wockhardt’s corporate office in Mumbai has opted for an integrated BMS Integration = profitability A management system where all these automated systems are integrated together is called a Building Management System (BMS). It enables a building to be operated more easily with greater efficiency, thus reducing operating costs and increasing profitability. The operator can monitor and control the parameters from a single central console, keeping training costs to a minimum and reducing the possibility of incorrect operations. "It enables monitoring various parameters controlled in a building," says Joseph Reddy, Senior Manager, Administration and Facilities, Hiranandani Constructions. "And in case of an emergency, it pinpoints the exact location, nature and cause of a problem.""An intelligent, integrated platform helps to repeatedly attain the desired set points for various parameters like lighting, temper-ature, air quality, water pressure, etc, which would be impossible in a non-automated environment," according to Trivedi. "Thus an end user can achieve optimum favourable conditions repeatedly without manually controlling the system. This also lengthens the lifespan of the hardware device being controlled." Cost efficiency "Building automation is a customised product and you cannot put an off-the-cuff figure on it," says Pattathu. "The first cost differs with the level of automation chosen. For example, in our office at Gurgaon, I have placed movement sensors, which detect unauthorised movement. But this is not a necessity, as all corporates and high-rise apartments have an alert man-guard service. This would obviously cost more. A truly integrated BMS would lead to a 15-20 per cent rise in initial investment as compared to a non-automated one. But there is a definite direct and indirect payback within three to five years, again depending on the level of automation opted for." "In a dumb HVAC unit, you can only toggle between degrees, whereas with the help of temperature controls in an automated HVAC system, toggling between micro degrees is possible," explains Vinayak Sane, Director, Elmark Engineers. "Also, in an intelligent cold water chiller, the power required to attain the desired set point would be less compared to a non-automated one. The end result is a reduction of about 10 per cent in energy consumption. You can control the fresh air movement in an automated air cooling system. A user can also control the humidity level in his office or house. This helps him preserve the work efficiency of the servers and various electronic circuits in place, thus reducing the maintenance cost of these devices. Lighting controls provide another 2-3 per cent energy saving, while 4-5 per cent can be gained through indirect benefits like water recycling, fire detection at an early stage, etc. So on an average, an automated environment decreases the energy and power consumption by 12-15 per cent. Using an integrated access control system also provides intangible benefits; you can keep a constant eye on an employee even from a remote location!" Sane's company offers integrated BMS consultancy solutions for clients and has to date implemented over 30 smart projects - clients include Wockhardt, BSES, Accenture, and Standard Chartered Towers, Chennai. "Incorporating an integrated BMS has enabled us to drastically cut down on energy consumption, maintenance and manpower costs," asserts Babu Murugeshan, Assistant Engineer, ITC Grand Maratha. "Also, operations have been much more efficient as we can monitor the entire system through a single computer. Consequently, customers are pleased with the hospitality. Though the payback takes around two to three years, the benefits prove extremely cost-effective in the long run." Need to integrate Integrating the various systems and subsystems in a building can be a tall order as all the systems and controllers that run them are made by scores of vendors, who use their own proprietary hardware and communication standards. "The fusion of these different concepts is difficult, time and energy consuming and sometimes even impossible," says Sane. "Many vendors are still working with a blindfold on. They are not ready to support their products on an open communication platform, thus making it impossible to integrate them with other devices." "The delimitation of responsibility at the interfaces and uncoordinated alterations in the subsystems represent almost intolerable complications for integration," says Vivek Kapoor, Manager, Siemens. The company is a leading brand providing building automation solutions. The answer: a common platform for integration (interoperability). This would mean that BMS components from different manufacturers would seamlessly operate together, sharing information on a common platform (a BUS). Then, there would be no need to purchase automation systems as a whole - the freedom to enjoy competitive pricing while choosing products from multiple vendors for adding to, or replacing existing equipment. A set of widely accepted communication standards or protocols, then, would allow equipment from multiple manufacturers to work together. Communication standards are standard interfaces for the exchange of information between various manufacturing devices, systems and programmes in a universally agreed way. They are a prerequisite for cost-efficient system integration and must be precisely defined for successful interoperability among various controlled systems. Protocols like LONWorks, BACnet, MODBUS, OPC, EIB/KNX and Pelco are widely used in building automation. Teething troubles "Building automation is at a nascent stage of development in India," says Lavinder Duggal, Proprietor, Magnum Air Cons. "It needs to be studied thoroughly to understand the business requirements of the user. Also, too much emphasis is laid on it being a costly, tech-savvy product. This will prove a hindrance in substantiating the product reach." "Currently, proprietary software and foreign-manufactured hardware tools are used for automation," say the two engineers from Tata Honeywell. "Due to import duties, the initial investment tends to be on the higher side. Indigenising the products will surely reduce the first cost. Also, due to some BMS suppliers and consultants selling the technology more as a costly ornament, there has been an overkill in the market to some extent. The user is not able to quantify what levels of automation he really needs. Customers should be trained in automation." "Standard protocols like BACnet and LONWorks are not truly open," says Lalit Shaiwala, Product Manager, Controls and Solutions India Ltd."They have loopholes which can be exploited to garner profits from innocent customers. People should opt for smaller vendors, supporting their products on an open framework. Presently, there are too few players in the market. But with more and more automation set-ups providing building solutions, things can only improve." "Sadly, manpower comes so cheap in our country that enterprises opt for employing three more people to achieve a particular task rather than conferring a capital investment for an elaborate control system," says Parish Kapse, Director, Team One Architects. "Until the mindset changes, it would always be tough to substantiate the market. I had the chance to design the Esplanade Theatres in Singapore. The matrix of parameters controlled under the BMS there was enormous - thermal control, light control, HVAC, acoustics, security, etc. The level of automation was awe-inspiring. We still have a long way to go." Future scope Whatever the hiccups, the future is bright for building automation. "The sky's the limit with the industry picking up," smile Architects Kalhan Mattoo, Sachin Patil and Santha Mattoo, Planet 3 Studios. They have designed many state-of-the-art colleges, pubs, hotels and discotheques. The only doubt is whether the current trend will catch on in residential high-rises. "The advent of GSM PLCs has opened up a lot of possibilities," says Duggal. "My friend in Korea operates his AC, lights and microwave oven from his mobile phone when he's away from home. Such features are just a matter of time." Not everyone agrees. "Unless the first cost reduces drastically, I fail to see it catching up in the residential sector," says Reddy. Perhaps not. But then leaving home for work would be that much more attractive - another intangible benefit of BMS!
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