tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46883455557036066352024-03-13T06:24:01.082-07:00Geospatial TechChronicles 3S Tech: RS, GIS, GPS & Mobile Technologies in a Spatial Data Management FrameworkDr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-40977013320038613672023-12-28T03:43:00.000-08:002023-12-28T09:35:32.637-08:00AI Renaissance & Hyper GENAIism <div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span> </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Generative AI has created a different
landscape and a different way to do something that investors are considering,. They
need to look at it differently because what it did was democratize technology
significantly. Everyone now has access to similar resources, these incredible
resources. If you're using OpenAI APIs, everyone can grab these APIs and grab
this amazing stuff. So the barrier from a technology perspective has been
lowered significantly but gap between the available talent and required expertise
is still wide enough to hamper the real traction in the application of GenAI in
the fields like </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Oil & Gas, Energy
& Utilities, Manufacturing and .Healthcare.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><br /></span></div><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;">The huge amount of
hype around generative AI since ChatGPT launched 11 months ago has been unlike
any piece of technology people have seen in a generation. But despite the
massive investment of awareness, time, and budget in GenAI projects, few
organizations seem to be meeting their business goals with GenAI. That’s a
reason why experts are predicting a modest pullback in 2024. </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;">Organizations will follow different trajectories in their
experience of generative AI, so it doesn’t necessarily mean an organization
needs to fall into the trough. It generally happens when expectations are not
managed. If you start out by looking at some targeted use cases, some targeted
pieces of implementation, and you have good metrics for success, and also
investments in data management and organization; good governance, good
policies; if you combine all that with a practical narrative about what the
models can do, then you’ve controlled the hype and you’re less likely to fall
into the trough.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></div></span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;">The </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;"> </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;">current AI renaissance will create a general awareness
and acceptance of technologies like Pattern Recognition, </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;"> </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;">ANN, Deep Learning and Big Data based
analytics which was earlier limited to scientific and research organizations. </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;"> </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;">IT companies will learn that present model of
talent development and trailing is not enough</span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;">
</span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;">to tackle the domains which require deep learning of subjects like mathematics
and modeling too apart from the usual IT skills employed in the IT support and maintenance
projects.</span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;"> </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;"> </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;">Very soon by 2025, </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;"> </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;">dusrt of GenAI </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;"> </span><span face="Arial, "sans-serif"" style="color: #333333;">Hype settle and make way for talent discovery
to increase in productivity</span></div></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p></p>
Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-28947580199692450692022-08-05T21:23:00.001-07:002022-08-05T21:24:08.119-07:00Ram Setu &Union Pacific Rail <p> Sea Bridge connecting India and Sri Lanka. </p><p><br /></p><p>Once someone said.</p><p><br /></p><p> Ram is fictional, from where did he get his engineering degree to build Ram Setu.</p><p> - DMK leader Late Karunanidhi</p><p><br /></p><p>Photo 1</p><p>The Union Pacific Rail Line in United States off America passes through the middle of the Great Salt Lake.</p><p><br /></p><p> Photo 2 Ram Setu</p><p>When railway tracks expanded in America, many rail companies competed to earn money by laying railway tracks and running many trains, but ....</p><p><br /></p><p> While connecting the East America to the West America, there was a huge ocean-like lake in the middle, which is the largest lake in America known as The Great Salt Lake.</p><p><br /></p><p> The biggest challenge before the engineers was how to fix alignment of route , pillars and lay the railway track across this lake.</p><p><br /></p><p> There was an engineer in the team of Union Pacific Rail who had read Ramayana and knew about #RamSetu....</p><p><br /></p><p> He came to India and studied Shri Ram Sethu, then his mind rang and he found out that if we lay a straight railway line across the lake, then this railway track could be broken by the waves...</p><p><br /></p><p> He built his railway track exactly on the design of Ram Setu, which is standing there and serving in America for the last 60 years.</p><p><br /></p><p> It happens that...</p><p> Where the water is deep and wavy, stability is achieved only by a slow curved / zig-zag design and Ram Setu was composed by the grace of Rishi Munindra, who was the revered Gurudev of Nal Neel.</p><p><br /></p><p>#spiritualgeology </p><p>#gurugyan #गुरुज्ञान</p>Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-1365065136140825592022-07-12T07:12:00.005-07:002022-07-12T07:12:59.809-07:00Spiritual Geology :Varah Avatar and Table mountain <p> </p><p dir="ltr">Evidence of a major Isostatic and Tectonic upluftment event in Ancient Hindu scriptures can be seen at many places around Table mountain national park, South Africa. </p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="background-color: #1877f2;">#क्षीरसागर</span> और <span style="background-color: #1877f2;">#वराह</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #1877f2;">#spiritualgeology</span> <br />
<span style="background-color: #1877f2;">#वराहअवतार</span> <span style="background-color: #1877f2;">#kshirsagar</span> <span style="background-color: #1877f2;">#varaha</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #1877f2;">#TableMountain</span> <span style="background-color: #1877f2;">#isostacy</span> <span style="background-color: #1877f2;">#isostaticupliftment</span> <span style="background-color: #1877f2;">#geology</span> </p>
<p dir="ltr">For as long as humans have occupied this part of the world – since approximately 15 000 years ago – Table Mountain has been a constant and steady presence. Myths and legends have been told about the place, and even today it is seen as an important spiritual landmark.</p>
<p dir="ltr">There is a story in the Puranas that Hiranyaksha took the earth away in <span style="background-color: #1877f2;">#Kshirsagar</span>.<br />
was hidden, which Lord Vishnu incarnated as <span style="background-color: #1877f2;">#Varaha</span><br />
Took it out.<br />
See, this topic is as simple as it seems in the story, do not understand it<br />
Puranas cannot be understood merely by taking out the meaning of the word. There are many ways to understand this story. Earth ie solid element, water or abyssal substance is fine. Earth on which humans, birds etc. live. The water was engrossed i.e. had gone to Hades. Lord Narayan took the Varaha avatar (who can live in both water and earth elements) and established the earth by taking it out of the abyss.<br />
<br />
There was only water everywhere on the earth, where life was not possible, normal life where yagya rituals etc. could be done. The piece of earth which was brought out by the Varaha Avatar of God, can also be called tectonic plate in today's language, which has now become seven continents in seven parts. The story is not only a story, it is also a sign of scientific implications. gives.<br />
This topic is not as simple as it seems in the story. Mythological stories are not only stories, it is a matter of science. Its explanation is as mysterious as the discovery of the origin of the universe by modern scientists. Atal, Vital, Sutala, Talatal, Rasatal, Mahatal and Patala.<br />
It has seven floors.<br />
There are 7 lokas above it. Prithvi Lok (forgetfulness) Hiranyaksha had perverted this sequence and hid the earth in the abyss. Means this sequence was taking distortion.<br />
Now in the legend which is Kshirsagar where Hiranyaksha hid the earth, which Lord Vishnu took out by taking Varaha avatar, <span style="background-color: #1877f2;">#Kshirsagar</span> is not on our earth, it is somewhere in the infinite sky.</p>
<p dir="ltr"> Some time ago, space scientists have also claimed to be a place where 140 million more water than Earth is said to exist,</p>
<p dir="ltr"> The universe is infinite, it is not a matter for an ordinary human to understand its secret. In this universe, we do not know how many earths are in the sky.<br />
The Puranas are said in metaphorical ornamentation. To understand their real meaning, the vision of Vedas, science, philosophy is also necessary, otherwise this Purana is only a story to you.</p><p dir="ltr">Watch this video </p><p dir="ltr">https://youtube.com/watch?v=XQgCioMYl-g&feature=share</p><p dir="ltr"><br /></p>Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-21462397460105581212021-04-17T23:36:00.001-07:002021-04-17T23:36:16.069-07:00Natural Hazards Alerts<p> </p><p dir="ltr"></p>
<div align="left"><p dir="ltr"><span style="font-size: 1.30em;"><b>Natural Hazards Alerts</b></span><br />
</p>
</div><p dir="ltr"></p>
<p dir="ltr">Natural hazards are associated with changes in ocean, land, atmosphere, and ionosphere. The ground, borehole, and satellite observations provide information at spatial and temporal resolution over the globe. Now optical and microwave satellites are capable in providing meteorological and atmospheric parameters at different pressure levels. With the sponsorship of an NSF Convergence Research grant, this virtual international workshop will brainstorm how to use various data available to scientists to develop or continue development on early warning systems that alert people in local communities, through various social and digital media of natural hazards. Early warning systems have already shown that damage to life and property can be minimized.</p>
<p dir="ltr">https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.agu.org%2FNatural-Hazards-Alerts&data=04%7C01%7Crsingh%40chapman.edu%7C75233defdb884fabd1aa08d9004a7dd1%7C809929af2d2545bf9837089eb9cfbd01%7C1%7C0%7C637541142212416467%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=1d0x7bGGRMKoBSKf%2FKuyxEd4EZ%2BmueDknUS51w5gfyw%3D&reserved=0</p>Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-14039194706909565512019-09-17T05:51:00.000-07:002019-09-17T05:52:43.310-07:00Open Source GIS <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h1 style="background: #F4F4F4; line-height: 36.75pt; margin-bottom: 10.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;">
Alternatives to ArcGIS Desktop </h1>
<div style="background: #F4F4F4; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">If you've ever worked with
geographic data on the desktop, chances are that you used Esri's ArcGIS
application in at least part of your work. ArcGIS is an incredibly powerful
tool, but unfortunately, it's a proprietary product that is designed for
Windows. Linux and Mac users are out of luck unless they want to run ArcGIS in
a virtualized environment, and even then, they're still using a closed source
product that can be very expensive to license. While their flagship product is
closed source, I would be remiss not to note that Esri has made <a href="http://www.esri.com/software/open/open-source" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration-line: none;">numerous contributions</span></a> to the open source
community.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Fortunately,
GIS users have a few choices for using open source tools to design maps and
work with spatial data that can be obtained under free and open source licenses
and which run on a variety of different non-Windows operating systems. Let's
take a look at some of the options.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h2 style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 16.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 19.0pt;">GRASS<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">GRASS
stands for Geographic Resources Analysis
Support System). It has a very long history, dating back to original
development which began in 1982 under the US government. In the time since,
GRASS has been adopted by the academic community, where its development
continues today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">I
mention this history because it will help you to understand the interface,
which launches with a terminal window and asks you a few questions about
setting up your project before launching a separate control and display window
for working with your data. If the GUI feels like it was later tacked on to a
powerful program working under the hood, well, that's probably what actually
happened. While the interface may not feel as intuitive to newcomers as some
other GIS applications, I like it for two reasons. One, since it really is just
a GUI abstraction to the underlying Python commands, advanced users can easily
manipulate data and display directly from the Python console, for speed,
preciseness, and importantly for academic applications, easy replicability. The
second reason I like the interface is that it exposes the wide and powerful
array of data manipulation tools directly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: #F4F4F4; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">GRASS is definitely the
winner when it comes to data analysis and geo-processing, and its tools can be
used from external applications, making it an extremely extensible tool which
is worth learning even if you don't take it on as your primary desktop GIS
system. GRASS is written primarily in C/C++, although many of its modules are
written in Python or other languages.</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></div>
<h2 style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 16.8pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 19.0pt;">QGIS<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">For
many people, discovering <a href="http://www.qgis.org/en/site/" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration-line: none;">QGIS</span></a> is the end of
their search for an ArcGIS alternative. It has a clean interface, it's easy to
use, and it just works. QGIS supports a wide variety of raster and vector
formats, and if you're a Linux user, there's a good chance that it's already
packaged for your distribution's default repositories. In addition to Linux, <a href="http://www.qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration-line: none;">downloads and instructions</span></a> for macOS,
Windows, BSD, and Android can be found on the project's website.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">QGIS
has great documentation which can be found in its <a href="http://docs.qgis.org/2.18/en/docs/user_manual/" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration-line: none;">user manual</span></a>, as well as an active user
community which has produced numerous tutorials, guides, and even books to help
you succeed. There are also a huge number of plugins that add a ton of
functionality not found in the base package, and its Python interface makes it
relatively easy for newcomers to create new ones.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">You
can find the <a href="https://github.com/qgis/QGIS" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration-line: none;">source code</span></a> to QGIS, which is written
primarily in C++, on GitHub under a GPLv2 license.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h2 style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px); margin-bottom: 11.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 16.8pt; overflow: hidden; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 19.0pt;">uDig<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<div style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">While
I've been a user of both GRASS and QGIS for several years now, recently I've
been trying to expand my horizon a bit and have been trying out <a href="http://udig.refractions.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration-line: none;">uDig</span></a>,
which stands for User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">uDig
different than the other two tools in that built more as an application
framework than a complete solution. It is, in fact, a stand-alone program, and
if you download it and fire it up you can begin adding and exploring your data
like a more traditional desktop GIS tool.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">But
its strength comes in its framework design, being built around the same Eclipse
IDE that many developers are familiar with already. In this way, uDig makes it
easy to develop your own GIS application which meets the specific needs of your
users. The project's <a href="http://udig.refractions.net/gallery/" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration-line: none;">gallery</span></a> hosts many
examples, from smart grid to forestry to logistics. uDig is jointly licensed
under the Eclipse Public License and a BSD license, and you can find its
Java-based source code <a href="https://github.com/locationtech/udig-platform" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration-line: none;">on GitHub</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">In addition to these desktop
tools, there are numerous tools</span><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> beyond the desktop </strong><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">that
GIS users can take advantage of. There are libraries for developing </span><a href="https://opensource.com/life/15/11/getting-started-web-mapping" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration-line: none;">web-based mapping tools</span></a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> like
Leaflet and OpenLayers. On the database site, most major database systems will
support basic X/Y coordinates, but </span><a href="http://postgis.net/" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration-line: none;">PostGIS</span></a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> leads the
pack with spatially-enabled open source databases by providing extensions on
top of PostgreSQL. Libraries like </span><a href="http://www.gdal.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration-line: none;">GDAL/OGR</span></a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> provide base
functionality to many other spatially enabled programs and have bindings for
many popular programming languages. Projects like </span><a href="http://geoserver.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration-line: none;">GeoServer</span></a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> and </span><a href="http://www.mapserver.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration-line: none;">MapServer</span></a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> offer
server-side spatial data hosting.</span></div>
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; line-height: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="background: #F4F4F4; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: .25in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: .25in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Many
of these open source projects find commercial support from companies like <a href="https://boundlessgeo.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration: none;">Boundless</span></a>.
The open source geospatial ecosystem is rich, and perhaps richer, than its
closed-source counterpart. Several of the projects above fall under the
umbrella of <a href="http://www.osgeo.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0098c3; text-decoration: none;">OSGeo</span></a>, the Open Source Geospatial Foundation,
which houses a number of different geographic tools and projects which are
worth checking out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-87418927933991578632019-09-05T01:14:00.000-07:002019-09-05T01:16:54.734-07:00High Resolution Mapping using UAS <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Heading1Char"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">UAS
platforms are nowadays a valuable source of data for inspection, surveillance,
mapping and 3D modeling issues. New applications in the short- and close-range
domain are introduced, being the UASs a low-cost alternatives to the classical
manned aerial photogrammetry. LIDAR has become the inevitable technology to
provide accurate 3D data fast and reliably even in adverse measurement
situations and harsh environments. It provides highly accurate point clouds
with a significant number of additional valuable attributes per point compared
to traditional digital photogrammetry based approach. UAS photogrammetry images
generate the high resolution terrain visualisation, topographic data essential
to detect precise asset locations, terrain modelling, geomorphological changes,
vegetation dynamics and tree height models.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Heading1Char"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Heading1Char"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">According to the new market research report
LiDAR market is expected to reach USD 1,809.5 Million by 2023 from USD 819.1
Million by 2018, at a CAGR of 17.2% during the forecast period.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Heading1Char"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The market for Solid-State LiDAR is expected to
grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. The higher CAGR of the
market for solid-state LiDAR during the forecast period is attributed to the
increasing range of applications of this type in the automotive and robotics
industries. The solid-state LiDAR systems were specially introduced for the
automotive industry. These LiDAR systems can also be installed in economy cars
due to their low costs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="Heading1Char"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Heading1Char"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">On the basis of installation, ground-based LiDAR
expected to grow with the highest CAGR during forecast period. The ground-based
LiDAR systems are used in the applications including small area scanning,
corridor mapping, volumetric mapping, and defense area surveying. Mobile
ground-based LiDAR is a new and emerging technology used in many applications
such as corridor mapping, transportation, hydrology, forestry, and
construction. Mobile ground-based LiDAR systems are mounted on a mobile
platform, preferably on a terrestrial vehicle. The advantage of being mounted
on a vehicle is that it enables the LiDAR to scan large areas accessible by
road. The automotive sector is emerging as an application area for the mobile
ground-based LiDAR systems, and the number of premium cars equipped with
advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) is rising every year. This is expected
to further boost the market for mobile ground-based LiDAR systems.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Heading1Char"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">North America is expected to
dominate the LiDAR during the forecast period. This growth can be attributed to
the supportive government initiatives and increasing utilization of LiDAR
systems by various institutes for various applications, such as corridor mapping,
forestry, environmental, and exploration, along with some of the emerging
applications including advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and urban
planning. The growing awareness regarding the benefits of LiDAR systems,
which include easy functionality, better quality, less complexity, and improved
features, can also be the driving factors for the growth of the LiDAR market in
the US. In addition, major companies such as Trimble, Faro, and Velodyne are
based in the US, which is also a key factor leading to the large share of the
US in the LiDAR market.</span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Major players operating in this market are
Teledyne Optech (Canada), Leica Geosystems (Switzerland), Reigl Laser
Measurement Systems (Austria), Trimble (US), Faro Technologies (US), Quantum
Spatial (Aerometric) (US), Velodyne LiDAR (US), Beijing Surestar Technology
(Isurestar) (China), Geokno (India), Sick AG (Germany).</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-align: right;"> </span></div>
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Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-70088371882987640522018-03-09T01:13:00.002-08:002018-03-29T01:07:04.689-07:00Temporal Analysis of Cape Town Drought<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zbembztlncg/WryekWGdaYI/AAAAAAAAP70/wRQr-aPmuOIPbCoAah3OtXplD9gvKR1CgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20160312_142416.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="901" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zbembztlncg/WryekWGdaYI/AAAAAAAAP70/wRQr-aPmuOIPbCoAah3OtXplD9gvKR1CgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_20160312_142416.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Cape Town is running out of water. After <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/01/cape-town-confronts-looming-day-water-crisis-180114121145902.html">three years</a> of intense drought, South Africa’s second-largest city is just a few months away from “Day Zero,” the day when the city government will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/30/world/africa/cape-town-day-zero.html">shut off</a> water taps for most homes and businesses.</div>
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The impacts of such a shutdown will be devastating. Citizens will have to wait in <a href="http://www.cbn.co.za/news/this-will-happen-when-cape-town-hits-day-zero">long lines</a> at state-managed distribution points to receive a mere 25 liters of water per day, less than half the water needed for one <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-15836433">average shower</a>. Experts are already warning of public health concerns like poor sanitation leading to <a href="https://qz.com/1200949/cape-town-water-crisis-poses-risk-to-public-health/">faster spreading of dangerous diseases</a>, especially for the city’s poorest residents, and forecasting that <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01134-x">pipes</a> may crack from dry conditions, endangering future water distribution if and when the drought ends. The Western Cape Premier has <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2018-01-22-from-the-inside-the-countdown-to-day-zero/#.WnjH_-jwbcu">warned</a> that “normal policing will be entirely inadequate” to manage the chaos that could ensue. </div>
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Although this instance is one of the most extreme, Cape Town is not the only city to suffer from intense water scarcity in recent years. From <a href="http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/11/3-maps-help-explain-s%C3%A3o-paulo-brazil%E2%80%99s-water-crisis">São Paulo</a> to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/01/los-angeles-california-drought-shaming">Los Angeles</a>, cities around the world have made headlines due to severe droughts intensified by climate change and exacerbated by poor water management.<br />
<br />
The loss of water can be seen most clearly with Cape Town’s biggest dam, Theewaterskloof. The reservoir now holds only 12 percent of its original capacity. <br />
For more details visit..<br />
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/capetown-water-shortage/?utm_term=.757d2010be6f">https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/capetown-water-shortage/?utm_term=.757d2010be6f</a></div>
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Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-72162628075696863622017-02-22T00:01:00.001-08:002017-02-22T00:01:21.663-08:00ISRO launched a record 104 satellites using a single rocket.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The satellites from seven countries were carried by the Indian Space Research Organization’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle on its 38th consecutive successful flight.</div>
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The mission reinforces India’s emerging reputation as a reliable and cost-effective option for launching satellites. In 2014, ISRO put a satellite into the orbit of Mars, becoming the first Asian country to reach the red planet at fraction of the cost of a similar launch in U.S. and Europe.</div>
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It first released its main cargo, ISRO’s 714 kilogram Cartosat-2 series satellite, which will be used for earth observation. It then released two smaller ISRO satellites, followed by the remaining 101 nano satellites, one each from Israel, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, and 96 from the U.S. As many as 88 of the nano satellites belonged to U.S.-based company Planet Inc.</div>
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ISRO said the satellites went into orbit 506 kilometers from earth, inclined at an angle of 97.46 degrees to the equator–very close to the intended orbit–after a flight of nearly 17 minutes. In the subsequent 12 minutes, all 104 satellites were successfully separated from the rocket in sequence, it said.</div>
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After separation, the two solar panels of ISRO’s Cartosat-2 series satellite were deployed and the space agency’s command center in Bangalore took control. In the coming days, the satellite will begin to provide start sending back black and white, and color pictures, ISRO said.</div>
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ISRO has now put 226 satellites into orbit, including 180 from foreign nations. The global space industry was estimated to be worth $323 billion in 2015, the latest year for which data are available, according to the Space Foundation, a U.S.-based research group. Commercial space business comprised as much as 76% of the industry.</div>
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Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-80228060699262021982016-12-05T22:52:00.000-08:002016-12-05T22:52:18.371-08:00Revenues from Geospatial Analytics industry to top $72.21 Billion in 2020<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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According to a new market research report <strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </strong>published by Marketsandmarkets<strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">, </strong>the<strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Geospatial Analytics Market </strong></strong>is expected to grow from <strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">USD 27.42 billion in 2015 to USD 72.21</strong> billion by 2020, at a CAGR of <strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">21.4%</strong> from 2015 to 2020. </div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: "Source Serif Pro", serif; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 3.2rem; margin-top: 3.2rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Download Free PDF brochure : <a href="http://tinyurl.com/jal4omf" rel="nofollow noopener" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #8c68cb; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: normal; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/jal4omf</a> </strong></div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: "Source Serif Pro", serif; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 3.2rem; margin-top: 3.2rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">GIS technology to play a key role in the geospatial analytics market</strong></div>
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GIS technology has given a significant boost to the geospatial analytics market due to developments in several trends, such as increase in the amount of geospatial information gathered through smartphones, GPS devices, and social media, among others. An increase in the accuracy of data gathered; advancements in hardware technologies, are additional factors influencing the demand of GIS technology.</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: "Source Serif Pro", serif; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 3.2rem; margin-top: 3.2rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Business vertical holds the largest share in the Geospatial Analytics Market</strong></div>
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The business vertical holds the largest market share among all the verticals. This large share is attributed to the increasing deployment of geospatial technologies in verticals, such as retail, manufacturing, real estate, healthcare, and so on. In retail, GIS technology is used to discover the best possible site for the location of a new shopping mall.</div>
<div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961); font-family: "Source Serif Pro", serif; font-size: 21px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 3.2rem; margin-top: 3.2rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Europe emerged as the leading region in terms of adoption and implementation of geospatial services</strong></div>
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Europe accounted for the largest share in the global geospatial analytics market in 2015. This high market share is mainly attributed to huge investments made in the field of geospatial analytics by key players in European countries.</div>
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Major players of the geospatial analytics market covered in the report include Trimble Navigation, Ltd., Hexagon AB, General Electric, RMSI, Bentley Systems, Inc., ESRI, MDA Corporation, Fugro N.V., Harris Corporation, and WS Atkins Plc. Some of the other players are TomTom, Digital Globe, Critigen, AAM, and Nokia.</div>
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Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-54535349225166261132015-09-14T04:29:00.001-07:002015-09-26T10:52:56.170-07:00Restructuring loan without Discoms Business Process Re-engineering is a doomed Idea<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">With a three-year government rescue package coming to a close, the highly indebted state of Rajasthan is getting tough - it's demanding farmers start paying for their electricity.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">In a country where rural communities have become used to free power, the state that is home to some 70 million is </span>tasking<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> private firms with running power distribution in its big cities as it tries to recoup what it's owed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Restructured power distribution debts alone amount to a quarter of Indian banks' problematic loans, and Rajasthan's state-run utilities owe about Rs 61,000 crore, with some Rs 3,000 crore due by end-March. While Rajasthan dropped an earlier plan to actually raise existing tariffs after opposition from farmers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">With these debt levels echoed across the country, Indian states have little choice but to find ways, extreme or otherwise, to face up to a long-ignored problem. Bad debts aren't just threatening banks - with electricity utilities central to the problem, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's electoral promise of power for all could be jeopardised.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) warned in June that the risk of states failing to repay loans on time was "very high", as a three-year rescue package launched in 2012 comes to an end - the source of Rajasthan's urgency on collecting fees for electricity. And the central government has identified the power utility sector as critical to solving banks' bad debt problems.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">States who cannot pay banks what they owe over the next few years could be forced to turn to the central government for help, putting pressure on India's consolidated fiscal deficit. The centre has ruled out a rescue package along the lines of the 2012 scheme launched under the previous government.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">The responsibility under the federal system for reform lies with states - all with different appetites for change, and for pursuing villagers who fail to pay.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Decades of mismanagement and political meddling have left utilities selling electricity below cost and turning a blind eye to rampant theft. The result is state distributors are sitting on $66 billion (nearly Rs 4.38 lakh crore) worth of debt, according to rating agency CRISIL, double the level four years ago.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Rajasthan's drive to collect payments from farmers and call in private firms to help run power distribution replicates reforms made a decade ago in PM Modi's home state of Gujarat. </span>Distributors<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> there are now largely profitable, and power is reliably available across most of the state.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">But reform has proved tough and not all states are willing to take difficult steps. In largely agricultural Uttar Pradesh, farmers pay a fixed fee for unlimited power, equating to about one rupee per unit of electricity, a sixth of the generation cost. The state power company's finance director says it has no plans to raise prices to close that gap.</span></div>
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Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-84261020961891573312015-06-29T00:18:00.000-07:002015-06-29T05:31:59.477-07:00Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">The Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will be soon launching Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS).He would launch the Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS), a flagship project of his government which aims at strengthening sub transmission and distribution network in the city along with 100 per cent metering facility. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">The IPDS is one of the flagship programmes of the Ministry of Power and w</span></span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">ill be at the core attempt to ensure 24x7 power for all. The Scheme, announced in the Union Budget 2014-15, aims at </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">strengthening of sub-transmission network, Metering, IT application, Customer Care Services, provisioning of solar panels and the completion of the ongoing works of the Part -A of the Restructured Accelerated Power Development and completion of the Reforms Programme (R-APDRP). </span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">R-APDRP has now been subsumed in IPDS and the program would be extending to smaller towns as well. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18pt;">The focus of IPDS is strengthening of sub-transmission and distribution network, metering of distribution transformers /feeders /consumers and IT-enablement of distribution sector and strengthening of distribution network in the urban areas.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Government of India will provide budgetary support of Rs. 45,800 crore over the entire implementation period of IPDS. Out of the total amount Rs 1,067 crore has been sanctioned for Uttar Pradesh including Rs 572 crore for Varanasi. The Project envisages converting area overhead lines into underground cabling in the areas around the temples and ghats in the Varanasi city. The Scheme includes upgradation of the electrical assets at Sub – centers, lines and distribution transformers, capacity enhancement and renewal of the old sub – stations and installation of roof-top solar panel in government buildings. IPDS will help in reduction in AT&C losses; establishment of IT enabled energy accounting / auditing system, improvement in billed energy based on metered consumption and improvement in collection efficiency.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">The Scheme is being launched from Varanasi for which Rs 574 crore has been allocated. The sector’s key financier Power Finance Corporation would prepare the detailed project report (DPR). The state government would then either bid the project or nominate agencies to execute the same as per the DPR.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 19.3199996948242px;"><b>Note: </b></span></span></div>
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The following are major differences between IPDS and earlier schemes for urban distribution sector:</div>
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a. Unlike earlier distribution scheme for distribution strengthening like R-APDRP which was limited to towns with 30000 or more population (10000 or more for special category states) as per Census 2001 IPDS covers the complete urban area of distribution utilities.</div>
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b. Unlike R-APDRP scheme , where conversion of loan into grant was extended upto 50% maximum and 90% max (for spl cat states) subject to reduction in AT&C loss , IPDS provides 75% max ( 90% max for spl category states) (incl 60% upfront ( 85% for spl cat states) with additional grant linked to achievement of milestones prescribed under the scheme.</div>
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<b style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">References..</b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">http://www.apdrp.gov.in/Forms/Summary_Sanctioned_Projects_Part_A</span></div>
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Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-27919324387408003542014-10-19T08:02:00.002-07:002014-10-21T08:25:34.699-07:00Book Review: Recovery from Indian Ocean Tsunami: A 10 year journey<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jqAACwgcwLs/VEPSYo-TcVI/AAAAAAAAAaU/TAiiKaemyIY/s1600/9784431551164.tif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jqAACwgcwLs/VEPSYo-TcVI/AAAAAAAAAaU/TAiiKaemyIY/s1600/9784431551164.tif" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.4444446563721px; line-height: 21.466667175293px;">10 years back in 2004, 26th of December, the Indian Ocean Tsunami devastated several countries in Asia, and the impacts also reached to East Africa. Over last 10 years, lots of innovations were made in different aspects of disaster risk reduction. The book has 31 chapters, drawing lessons from four countries: India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. There are five sections: Overview (10 chapters), Indonesia (8 chapters), India (6 chapters), Sri Lanka (5 chapters), and Thailand (2 chapters).</span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.4444446563721px; line-height: 21.466667175293px;">One of the chapter that deals with the role of IT & GI Services in Emergency Response Management is authored by me.</span></span><br />
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Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-12753431400863564732014-09-18T09:48:00.000-07:002014-10-16T03:34:48.080-07:00India Wants To Build Massive Digital Infrastructure To Cover 800 Million Rural Citizens by 2019<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A $17-billion government program to build a national optical fiber network that will connect India’s gram panchayats, or village-level governments, aims to cover the entire country in three years and could be a game changer, an Indian minister told Forbes.<br />
Ravi Shankar Prasad, minister of communications and IT, and the head of the advisory group which supervises the implementation of the Digital India program, as it is called, said the program was <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/cabinet-clears-digital-india-programme/">approved by the Indian cabinet</a> last month, and aims to cover 50,000 gram panchayats this year, 100,000 next year and the remaining 100,000 the following year. India’s 600,000 villages where over <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/india-s-total-population-is-1-21-billion-final-census-reveals-361056">800 million</a> live, are administered by these local self-governments. “The entire country will be covered by broadband within three years and the internet will reach the remotest villages,” Prasad said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who steered the Digital India policy, is personally overseeing the project to ensure deadlines are met, he said. </div>
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The program would rapidly drive internet usage in India and boost the economy. “India is sitting at the cusp of a huge digital revolution,” said Prasad.</div>
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“Something big is unfolding,” said Hemant Joshi, partner at advisory firm, Deloitte Haskins & Sells. But the Digital India program is not without challenges, experts said. Finding the financial resources and meeting program deadlines could be foremost among those. India’s structure where governments ruling the country and the states are sometimes led by different political parties could throw up additional complications, Joshi said. There is also the matter of ‘right of way’ when laying thousands of miles of fiber optic cable.<br />
The government plans to hire at least 10 CIOs to oversee the Digital India program in key ministries, and create four other senior positions for dealing with adoption of standards and security aspects.</div>
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The government will create an enabling platform that will aid in delivering government services to citizens as well as services in education, healthcare, entertainment and e-commerce. “Public services like land records and caste certificates will be made available online on demand online,” Prasad said. In conjunction with state governments, 20-hour e-literacy training programs in local languages will be conducted in 200,000 community service centers across the country.<br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 25px;">http://www.forbes.com/sites/saritharai/2014/09/18/india-wants-to-build-massive-digital-infrastructure-to-cover-800-million-rural-citizens-by-2019/</span></span><br />
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Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-74422856077754104812014-09-03T22:40:00.000-07:002015-02-27T01:05:21.683-08:00SAP ACE Award 2014 to DFCCIL <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; padding: 0in;">In
recognition of India Public Services sector in driving excellence and
innovation using information technology, to improve the lives of people and
deliver better, more effective government, SAP felicitated 16 Indian
enterprises with the SAP Awards for Customer Excellence (ACE) for being at the
forefront.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The
awards were presented at the eight SAP ACE Award ceremony held at JW Marriot in
New Delhi, India. The SAP ACE 2014 for Public Services award categories
included Utilities, HR & Payroll, Mobility, Procurement, Finance, Urban
local bodies, Innovation and Database computing.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; padding: 0in;">Dedicated
Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd ( DFCCIL ) has been awarded
the SAP ACE Award 2014, on 13th August, 2014 as a Special Recognition
for leveraging technology in the. This being the first case in public
sector wherein DFCCIL leveraged SAP solution for its core process and
integrated the same with GIS both in the Corporate Office and in all the 14 CPM
offices across both Eastern and Western Corridors. Implementation has been
done by HCL. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The award
honoured Indian public services organisations that became the differentiator in
improving people’s lives and help urban governments to be best run governments
and to help cities contribute to a better run country.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-91828402015830030402014-08-21T06:34:00.002-07:002014-10-16T03:35:23.391-07:00Smart Cities & Digital India Initiative by GoI<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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As expected PM Narendra Modi has approved an umbrella programme—Digital India- comprising various projects worth about INR 1 lakh crore ie USD 20 Billion to transform the country into a digitally-empowered knowledge economy. The Digital India programme includes projects that aim to ensure that government services are available to citizens electronically and people get the benefit of the latest information and communication technology (ICT).</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4d4f51; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 30px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Digital India programme is a transformed version of the already running National e-Governance Plan. It is in addition to 100 Smart Cities project in the next 5 years. </span>The Mega trend of Smart Cities is set to drive urban development for the next decade and will drive demand for response, storage, multi-energy networks, smart devices, and new business models. In 2025, it is expected we will have around 26 global Smart Cities which will feature five of the eight aforementioned parameters. Around 50 percent of these will be located in North America and Europe.</div>
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There are several cities that are focusing on specific aspects that help it run efficiently, such as on their transport, energy and waste management. In example, implementation of smart grids is being pushed heavily for smart energy management. Eight key aspects that define a Smart City are smart governance, smart energy, smart building, smart mobility, smart infrastructure, smart technology, smart healthcare and smart citizen.</div>
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Frost & Sullivan research estimates a combined market potential of $1.5 trillion globally for the smart city market in segments of energy, transportation, healthcare, building, infrastructure, and governance. If one compares that to GDP of nations in 2014, it will sit above the GDP of Spain, thus making it the 12 largest GDP in the world. Yet, while the potential is huge, the challenge faced is finding funding and developing the right business model, as many cities in the Western world do not have the finances available to take on some mammoth-sized projects. As such, four main models that will be used, through which companies will engage with city authorities and utilities to tap into this market will be used: Build Own Operate (BOO), Build Operate Transfer (BOT), Build Operate Manage (BOM) and Open Business Model (OBM).</div>
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<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Based on Frost & Sullivan’s study on “Strategic Opportunity Analysis of the Global Smart City Market” published in 2013.<a href="http://ajaysrivastava.blogspot.in/2014/08/smart-cities-digital-india-initiative.html">Smart Cities & Digital India Initiative by GoI</a></em></div>
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Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-68810116509913375062014-02-03T08:36:00.001-08:002014-02-03T08:41:47.364-08:00Can Delhi and its Discoms afford Subsidies?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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For a very long time, the supply of power to Delhi was a government undertaking. But after decades of losses, in 2002, the state government decided to reduce its hold and unbundle what was then called the Delhi Vidyut Board. BSES bid to take over the Board and about nine months later, Reliance Power bought over BSES. That left Delhi’s power distribution in the hands of a public private partnership between Reliance and the Delhi government. And the new entity’s biggest challenge was to corporatize the creaking government enterprise.</div>
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BSES went for massive technological upgradation including IT infrastructure to control losses. BSES invested Rs 4,000 crore in augmenting the utility’s infrastructure. </div>
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The IT project helped the organization reduce losses from 60 percent to 20 percent. It also lowered consumer complaint levels by over 89 percent with the grievance closure rate of 91 percent.</div>
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That has allowed BSES to turn into a self-sustaining enterprise and save the Delhi Government Rs 15,000 crore.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; text-align: left;">Business process re-engineering and IT project completely revamped the way the electricity utility functions. It curbed corruption, reduced power losses by over 40 percent—and saved the Delhi government crores. “The amount it saved the Government—by not doling out urban subsidies—played significant role in funding the Commonwealth Games,” says Singh </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 16.100000381469727px; text-align: left;">K.B. Singh, VP-I.T, BSES who was responsible for transforming it into a modern and profitable electric utilities co..</span></div>
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Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-12290514457411837072013-03-24T07:04:00.001-07:002014-10-16T03:38:01.129-07:00Integrated Rating for State Power Distribution Utilities<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">The
Integrated Rating methodology for State Power Distribution Utilities was
developed by Ministry of Power (MoP) and
unveiled in the State Power Ministers conference held in July 2012.
The methodology was developed by MoP
keeping in view poor financial health of State Distribution utilities and the
need to base future funding exposures on an objective rating mechanism. The
main objectives of developing the integrated rating methodology for the state distribution
utilities are:</span></div>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To devise a mechanism for incentivising/dis-incentivising the entities in order to improve their operational & financial performance.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To facilitate realistic assessment by Banks/FIs of the risks associated with lending exposures to various distribution utilities and enable funding with appropriate loan covenants for bringing improvement in operational, financial and managerial performance. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -0.25in;">May serve as a basis for Govt. assistance to the state power sector through various schemes like RAPDRP, NEF, etc. MoP has mandated Power Finance Corporation (PFC) to co-ordinate the rating exercise, which in turn has appointed ICRA & CARE to carry out the rating exercise. The exercise does not cover State Power/Energy Departments and private sector distribution utilities.</span></li>
</ul>
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<a href="http://ajaysrivastava.blogspot.in/2013/03/integrated-rating-for-state-power.html">http://ajaysrivastava.blogspot.in/2013/03/integrated-rating-for-state-power.html</a><br /><br />
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<script src="http://i.po.st/static/v3/post-widget.js#publisherKey=jdf269vla07hch9q6hh2&retina=true" type="text/javascript"></script>Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-513009710519817262012-10-06T10:47:00.000-07:002014-10-16T03:37:03.624-07:00GIS: From Tool to Spatial Data Information System<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Five years ago, I started this blog. GIS has graduated from a data capture and manipulation tool to SDIS and merged with the mainstream IT system. Today’s
GIS includes lots of technologies, from programming, remote sensing, web, html,
database, IT networking, server management, scripting or automation to route
and network analysis…and the list goes on. The problem is that we cannot have
every skill on the list in reality. I mean all of these are good skills to
GIS; we just cannot be an expert on all subjects. Additionally, GIS is not a
pure science, it rests applications. This means, on top of GIS, we will need
background knowledge of the discipline whatever the choice for the applications
of GIS.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Consider a planner in Public Works Department needs to
work on a roadway expansion project, or increase the posted speed limit. The
planner might use GIS to (a) identify where to put noise sensors measuring
noise impacts in the study, or (b) to use GIS to justify that the noise impacts
in an environmental study are within acceptable limits, (c) or use GIS to
produce maps explaining the road expansion project and related mitigations in a
public hearing. The planner might use GIS to determine the radius of area in
which affected homes would receive notifications to attend a coming public
hearing. Another planner works on airport expansion project might use GIS to
determine which homes can receive free triple-pane window replacement as
mitigation to noise impacts justified by an environmental impact report.
Examples go on and on. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
looking at these examples, obviously GIS is used as a tool to achieve the
business objectives, to facilitate the operations or justify the legal
fulfillment of having environment impact studies done, or simply justify a ‘go
ahead’ for a project. The
output from the GIS becomes the input to the business process or reaching
business decisions.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>To implement and
build the roadway expansion, we will need planners, engineers. GIS is used as a
tool to assist reaching the goal. In reality, many engineering departments will assign
GIS duties to experience planners instead of creating a ‘pure’ GIS function.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Nevertheless,
there are areas that GIS has less emphasis on requiring background knowledge of
disciplines, such as creating geo-data for base map, or GIS function in
publishing maps in redevelopment agency. But when you think about sanitary base
map, don’t you think that the department would want someone who knows GIS and
at the same time has sanitary engineering background to understand and read the
sanitary construction engineering drawings to ensure accurate data are captured
into GI system? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">If
you have engineering background, the engineering background will be
the core skills that lead you to the appropriate position in engineering
related job, and GIS skills would be the secondary skills that make you more
successful and ready for the peripheral GIS duties often added to the engineering tasks. GIS is good to have it, but you want to use it in
combining with your background and core skills. Out
of the GIS skills, you might want to focus on database queries, spatial
analysis, CAD interoperability and some mapping skills. As to almost all
disciplines programming is helpful. If you perceive you would have lots of
repeated tasks, programming in GIS helps to deal with that. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">GIS
is still a very powerful and useful tool. Like many other professions, it’s a
matter of how to apply the technology, and that makes a difference. It is
important to find out where you stand in using a technology in combining with
other skills you have. GIS would not mean the same for everyone.</span></div>
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Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-72495924313678295812012-08-01T03:53:00.000-07:002012-08-01T09:08:33.373-07:00Restrict Black Sheeps to Prevent Blackouts and then Think Smart (Grid)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Half the country was without power yesterday (31st July 2012) and day before in the biggest blackout the world has ever seen. Three regional power grids collapsed from too much demand, leaving miners trapped underground, metro services at a halt and people sweltering in the summer heat. Power outages can happen at any time. Power outages can result from many different occurrences and events, including storms, natural disasters, animals, motor vehicle accidents and planned outages. It is a statistical fact that approximately 70% of all power outages across the U.S. are caused by weather-related events, such as thunderstorms, ice storms, heavy winds and lightning strikes, as well as other natural disasters like floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.<br />
<br /> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Power grid is archaic in India, part of the problem with the grid is also the lack of automation and maintenance. Many of us know that there is considerable leakage of power thru illegal tapping. Transmission efficiency improvement is another issue. Improvements in this area can easily restore & solve about 10 to 15% of the power demands and projects like R-APDRP should be implemented properly to improve the situation. <br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Biggest problem is huge T&D losses mainly due to power theft and misuse. Theft (of all types) represent a psychological problem (not just socio-economic as propounded by many analysts) that can be tackled only thru strict rules and regulations. Political indifference to this problem, and rampant power theft by industries in connivance to electricity department are the biggest reasons for the continued mess. Even huge investments done in the name of feeder renovation programe launched with APDRP have not resulted in any tangible improvement. Along with technical solutions socio-psychological approach is also desirable. Perfect energy accounting, auditing and pin pointing responsibility for unreasonable energy losses/leakage is primary requirement. People's participation is proved and powerful tool to address the problem. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
In fact, Indian power grid is still not ready for a smart grid project. We need a reliable and uninterrupted power not just to those shopping malls, multiplexes and IT parks but to the needy farmers in those drought hit areas where currently the crop cannot sustain because the water cannot be pumped to the farms in time due to power shortage for almost 12 hours every day. Many argue that Smart-Grid is quite uneconomical compared to the cost of integrating smart-grid equipment to decades old grids. Many consider Smart-Grid as an incapable innovation especially with the conventional system of power Generation, Transmission and Distribution. Instead, microgrids with distributed power generation are the answer to a country with huge population. The design & implementation model there is going to be quite different from what is being done in the US. Microgrids will be less prone to terrorist/security threats and also to blackouts. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Remember, Smartgrids, won’t prevent an outage, but they might allow you to restore things more quickly. Smart grid would definitely help in balancing demand vs. supply, establishing interoperability and thus improving efficiency, if the proper policies are enforced and required infrastructure is develop. </div>
</div>Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-31336885964140585032012-05-14T01:57:00.000-07:002012-05-14T01:57:31.512-07:00Open Source in Electric Utilities<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h1 class="single-title">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="goog_1971265507"></span><span id="goog_1971265508"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a>Kerala Electricity Board saves mn by using Open Source</span></h1>
<h1 class="single-title" style="font-weight: normal;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Kerala has always been in the forefront with regard to free and open source solutions. In Kerala starting from school students to Government offices, everyone uses Linux. </span> </h1>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The revolution started way back in 2008 with the successful in-house development and implementation of <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORUMA" rel="wikipedia" title="ORUMA">ORUMA</a>(Open Resourced Utility Management Application). ORUMA gave freedom to <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.kseb.in/" rel="homepage" title="Kerala State Electricity Board">Kerala State Electricity Board</a> (KSEB) from the clutches of Microsoft</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
KSEB serves 11 million customers across the state and has 697 sections for billing. ORUMA works within a client-server architecture and works in real-time providing solutions for new connections, billing, cash collection and accounting of customers. PostgreSQL is used as a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), Debian Linux as the server OS, Ubuntu Linux as the client OS, and PHP as the server-side scripting language for the Web-based front-end. In addition to ORUMA, KSEB has accounting software Saras, a Human Resource Management System (PF and Payroll module); HT and EHT billing software for new connections, billing, collection and accounting; software providing Web-enabled services like e-payment, and the Supply Chain Management System, which handles planning, procurement and store management. Even the KSEB website runs on Joomla, again an open source solution. They are planning to implement GIS also on open source as most of their requirements are simple do not justify costly COTS deployment.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Advantages of FOSS adoption:</div>
<ol style="text-align: justify;">
<li>Economic and technical superiority</li>
<li>Saved about Rs 7-8 crore(1.6 mn USD) by implementing open source tools for deployment of various applications</li>
<li>No license renewals and version updation, so no expenses in that regard</li>
<li>The government has become aware about this recurring expenditure, and supports open source solutions to the maximum extent possible to keep IT expenses down to the minimum.</li>
<li>No vendor dependability</li>
<li>Free to modify code without fear of legal complications</li>
<li>In terms of scalability, PostgreSQL stands at par with industry-known proprietary databases like SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL</li>
</ol>
<h1 class="single-title">
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span></h1>
</div>Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-4628321409121224312012-01-07T03:37:00.000-08:002012-01-07T03:43:24.299-08:00Why India lags behind China in R&D<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="yiv1531187395MsoNormal" style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "sans-serif";">In the year 2000 the then PM, Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, observed at the Annual Science Congress that the R&D expenditure was 0.9% of GDP and would be increased to 2% in the next five years. </span></span></div><div class="yiv1531187395MsoNormal" style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "sans-serif";"> </span></span></div><div class="yiv1531187395MsoNormal" style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "sans-serif";">In the year 2012, the present PM, Dr. Manmohan Singh, observed, also at that the Annual Science Congress that the R&D expenditure is a meager 0.9% of GDP and it will be increased to 2% in the next five years.</span></span></div><div class="yiv1531187395MsoNormal" style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "sans-serif";"> </span></span></div><div class="yiv1531187395MsoNormal" style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "sans-serif";">Were the two Prime Ministers reading the same speech?</span></span></div><div class="yiv1531187395MsoNormal" style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "sans-serif";"> </span></span></div><div class="yiv1531187395MsoNormal" style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "sans-serif";">Promises are meant to be kept and not to be repeated !!</span></span></div><div class="yiv1531187395MsoNormal" style="color: white;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "sans-serif";"> </span></span></div><div class="yiv1531187395MsoNormal"><i><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="color: white; font-size: small;">P.S. The above information was brought to my attention by none other than Dr. R A Mashelkar, who was the Scientist President of the 2000 Science Congress session. </span></span></i></div></div>Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-79302326048754345232011-10-27T04:33:00.000-07:002012-05-14T01:28:39.290-07:00GIS and Web 2.0/ 3.0<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It is new generation of internet with focus on people and social networking.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Web 3.0 - Mobile Websites, Text Campaigns and Smartphone Applications</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
Web 3.0 is all of the above with web experience that is no longer limited to desktop and laptop computers. It’s the Internet on the go fueled by mobile phones and tablets. Websites must be designed to be easily read on mobile devices. Group text campaigns function like e-mail newsletters in Web 1.0 which will drive traffic to your mobile website. Smartphone Applications enable content to be published and shared easily while on the go.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">GeoWeb 2.0 – Consumer Mapping, Blogs, Wikis, and Social Networking sites</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
<i>"If an essential part of Web 2.0 is harnessing collective intelligence, turning the web into a kind of global brain, the blogosphere is the equivalent of constant mental chatter in the forebrain, the voice we hear in all of our heads. It may not reflect the deep structure of the brain, which is often unconscious, but is instead the equivalent of conscious thought." —<b>Tim O'Reilly </b></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">At its core, Web 2.0 is the beginning of two-way communication in Web Applications. Web 2.0 sites invite participation and that might be voting, rating, commenting and submitting new posts. So Web 2.0 sites are collaborative. For example in Social networking sites like Google, Google Maps, Earth, Bing Maps, Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Youtube can have friends, fans, followers, connections etc. So Web 2.0 category sites contains following features.</span></div>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Web 2.0 sites are Two-way.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Web 2.0 sites are Active.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Web 2.0 sites are Dynamic.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Web 2.0 sites are Collaborative.</span></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The ArcGIS Online initiative is all about the Web 2.0 style of services, sharing, and mashups. It provides many mapping resources as well as a framework for sharing data and services. All of this has been implemented using open standards and open Web protocol. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="Default">
<b>Limitations</b></div>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Limit to the number of points of interest or shapes</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Tile overlays can be slow when rendered dynamically</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Interacting with vector based shapes when represented on tiles for overlay </span></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
<b>Web 1.0 - Websites, E-mail Newsletters</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
It's hard to define Web 1.0 for several reasons. So I will put it this way. What Web 1.0 really is, it's everything in between from the day World Wide Web has introduced and the day Web 2.0 has introduced. So keeping that in mind, Web 1.0 category web applications contains following features.</span></div>
<ul type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Web 1.0 sites are Static.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Web 1.0 sites aren't Interactive.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Web 1.0 applications are Proprietary.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Web 1.0 sites are One-way.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Web 1.0 sites are Passive.</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Web 1.0 sites are Closed.</span></li>
</ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Web 1.0 category sites basically contain information that user's might find useful, but there's no reason for a visitor to return to the site later. An example might be a personal Web page that gives information about the site's owner, but never changes. And visitors can only visit these sites, they can't contribute to these sites. Because of this, these kind of sites are Static and they are not Interactive to the visitor which will make the site Passive, One-way and a Closed site.</span></div>
</div>Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-29019063904938923562011-10-10T04:20:00.000-07:002011-10-10T04:33:38.376-07:00Bailout or Blackout: Commercial losses set to double in SEBs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">A report titled <b>'Bailout or Blackout: SEBs on borrowed time' </b>by IIFL's Institutional Equities says that the aggregate net worth of state electricity boards (SEBs) has been wiped out. An excerpt is shared here.<br />
<br />
The aggregate net worth of state electricity boards (SEBs) has been wiped out and there is little political appetite to defray cost inflation through tariff increases. Worryingly, the states seem to be working on the assumption of a bail-out package similar to the one in 2001. Utilities, especially private utilities with short-term power sales, would be severely tested in the interim. Longer delays may adversely affect loan book quality of institutions such as Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) and Power Finance Corporation (PFC) that have large exposures to SEBs. A ~40 per cent increase in the financial sector's SEB exposure (Rs 2 trillion or $44 billion as at end-FY09), given the estimated losses of Rs 1.08 trillion over FY10-11 is estimated. But is there a way out? A forced consensus would emerge for reforms, but a bail-out might still be needed in the interim, as reforms take time. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> The <b>Shunglu Committee on SEBs</b> estimates that losses have more than doubled to Rs 680 billion in FY11. Blended tariffs will have to increase by ~25 per cent if SEBs are to break-even. If Coal India (CIL) increases coal prices for utilities by ~20 per cent, a further ~5 per cent increase in overall tariffs will be required to break-even.<br />
<br />
<b>Losses mount as tariffs lag cost increases</b><br />
<br />
With the average blended tariff increasing by only 6.5 per cent over FY07-09 versus the 16.5 per cent increase in the average cost of supply, aggregate cash losses have jumped 4x to Rs 284 billion over FY07- 09. The Shunglu Committee on SEBs estimates that losses have more than doubled to Rs 680 billion in FY11. Cost increases have been driven by the jump in cost of power purchased, which is up 16 per cent over FY07-09.<br />
<br />
<b>Sharp rise in power purchase cost the key culprit</b><br />
<br />
Consolidated average cost of supply (ACS) for Indian distribution utilities stood at Rs 2.58/unit, up 16.5 per cent over FY07-09. Power purchase forms the largest proportion of ACS at 62 per cent. This is followed by employee cost (12 per cent) and fuel costs (10 per cent). For distribution utilities, the average power purchase cost increased 17 per cent over FY07-09. The majority of the increase happened in FY09. The adverse demand-supply situation was exacerbated by political compulsions to reduce load-shedding in the run-up to the general elections in the summer of 2009.<br />
<br />
<b>Insignificant benefits from slightly lower AT&C losses</b><br />
<br />
An insignificant correction in AT&C losses has not benefited the utilities. These losses remain high, owing to multiple issues such as power theft and collection inefficiencies and most importantly, from a lack of political will to direct the utilities to curb power theft. Internationally, AT&C losses stand at 4-8 per cent in the developed world. Adjusting for inferior T&D infrastructure as compared to developed countries, actual T&D losses in developing countries can be pegged at ~10 per cent. This means that ~18 per cent of the power produced is simply stolen. The cost of stolen power is either borne by the paying consumers or the discoms. The additional cost due to stolen power is partially passed on. Hence, any increase in sourcing cost of power results in larger losses for the discoms.<br />
<br />
<b>Tariff increase has not kept pace with cost increases</b><br />
<br />
Tariffs, on the other hand, have largely remained stable over FY07-09. Blended tariff increased by just 6.5 per cent over FY07-09.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> Average tariff for agricultural consumers has increased from Rs 0.74/unit in FY07 to Rs 0.86/unit in FY09 - a 15.6 per cent increase over the two years. The increase might look high in percentage terms but the pace of increase is woefully slow when compared to the absolute increase in cost of supply. The fact that tariffs are significantly below the cost of supply results in a sharp jump in losses as the cost of supply increases.</span></div><ul style="text-align: justify;" type="disc"></ul><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> <b>SEBs are eschewing expensive power to contain losses</b><br />
<br />
Industry participants and regulators given the poor financial condition of discoms have little inclination to buy expensive power, hence reducing off-take from stations based on expensive fuel sources. For imported coal/gas-fired capacities, there would be brief periods of respite during state/national elections when political compulsions would translate into SEBs being forced to buy even expensive power.<br />
<br />
<b></b> Most states in India heavily subsidise the power for agricultural use by charging higher rates to industrial users. For large states, 31 per cent of the energy sold is used for agriculture. However, revenue from agricultural customers forms only 8 per cent of the total revenue. Industrial customers contribute 46 per cent of total revenues against their share of 34 per cent of total energy sold.<br />
<br />
<b>APDRP - useful but not having a significant enough impact</b><br />
<br />
Aiming for a financial turnaround of the distribution sector, the central government had launched the Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme (APDRP). Under this scheme, central plan assistance was made available to states undertaking distribution reforms in a time bound manner. An incentive scheme was introduced to incentivise utilities achieving cash loss reduction.<br />
<br />
The R-APDRP was launched in July 2008 to establish reliable and verifiable baseline data and further reduce the AT&C losses. R-APDRP is focusing on strengthening T&D systems to reduce AT&C losses on a sustainable basis. Overall, Rs 400 bn has been allocated as loans for R-APDRP of which Rs 200 billion will be converted to a grant depending on the extent to which utilities reduce losses.<br />
<br />
Overall, the APDRP and R-APDRP programme has resulted in AT&C losses decreasing from 38.9 per cent in FY02 to 28.4 per cent in FY09. While the first few years did see an improvement, the pace of improvement has slowed down significantly. In fact, the Western region witnessed a worsening of AT&C losses in FY09.<br />
<br />
So R-APDRP cannot make a significant contribution to improving the financials of distribution utilities. In the absence of sufficient tariff hikes, gains on APDRP would provide little help to distribution utilities. For instance, the Southern region, which has the lowest AT&C losses, is the largest contributor to the increase in book losses as tariffs have remained stable over many years, while power purchase cost keeps increasing.<br />
<br />
The slow pace of privatization of distribution is not helping. A key component of the distribution reforms has been the privatization of power distribution. Privatization is being attempted broadly in two ways, sale of a government-owned utility to private enterprise and through appointment of a private distribution enterprise, particularly for a loss-making circle.<br />
<br />
<b></b> <b>Distribution franchising differs from privatization</b><br />
<br />
Distribution reforms are inevitable, owing to mounting AT&C losses and deteriorating health of state-owned distribution entities. However, despite this dire situation, states are reluctant to implement tough reforms. Privatizing distribution is one of the simplest forms of reforms, but it involves transfer of assets and manpower to private entities. Such changes in ownership are often not received positively by the masses, especially employees of distribution firms, who are directly affected by any changes in ownership. Hence, states are reluctant to implement privatization.<br />
<br />
<b>Government could finally resort to a bailout (similar to the one in 2001) for SEBs</b><br />
<br />
Apart from subsidized funds for SEBs, the central and state governments could resort to a one-time settlement similar to the one adopted in 2001. The health of state finances is much better than that in 2001. Hence, it would easier for the states to contribute to the funds required for the one-time settlement. In 2001, the accumulated dues of Rs 414 billion had arisen due to the continued non-viability of the current operations of the SEBs. The commission recognized that settlement of past dues alone would not solve the basic problem facing the SEBs. Unless the problem of current unviability is speedily addressed, overdues would mount again. </span></div></div>Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-8645210951069319202011-01-22T08:28:00.000-08:002011-01-22T09:02:11.123-08:00Issues in the Electric Network Mapping & GIS Implementation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Recently I attended Geospatial MapWorld Forum in Hyderabad, India. It was a good opportunity to share experience with various GIS volunteers working on Electric GIS. I also presented a paper on the issues critical to the successful implemetation of GIS in Electric utilities.All the people I met and discussed agreed with my view that we need to be more practical in such projects.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">Status of GIS Implementation in Utilities</span></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">I used GIS "data quality" as an indicator of knowing the status of GIS implementation and its utilization within the utility. Now days completeness and currency of data is considered most important in any GIS database of utilities who maintain a dynamic network that changes rapidly in the field. No one will use an outdated data if its not updated regularly and do not reflect the ground reality. I based my conclusions on a published survey to assess the status of GIS in the utilities in USA.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span><b><span style="line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">2009 Smart Grid Readiness Survey Findings are summarized here– </span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">70% Utilities have a data backlog of 90 days or more</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">25 % reported backlog of more than 6 M or year(s)</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Larger utilities have longer lag times in data updation</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Data model still not stabilized</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Integration with non-GIS database and applications is not as per business needs and utilities work flow </span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0.75in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; line-height: 115%;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Lack of commitment by domain people</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
It is very clear that something is wrong with the utilities own approach to GIS implementation. Most of the utilities are vendor driven and not business focused. Based on this I identified some common issues and also suggest the solution to make things simple and projects feasible.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">Technical Issues </span></b></span></div><ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">End users want a view of the data that is in line with the as-built used by them. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Survey output is not generally accepted because it cant be easily interpreted by the engineers and field technicians who are used to dealing with as-builts and SLDs. Make work flow simple and in line with the engineering guidelines and standards.</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Maintain a good customer address information</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Link customer premises with the Electric network</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Pole/Transformers/Substation</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Feeder/Circuit</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Supply Phase </span></span></li>
</ul><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Reflect customers in GIS as soon they are connected in the field</span></span></li>
</ul><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">Operational Issues</span></b></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Follow the international practices for Utilities Mapping & Facilities Management</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div><ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Do not rely too much on advanced surveying techniques like DGPS and Geophysical methods- cable tracing & GPR. </span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Project becomes FEASIBLE & in-line with STANDARD international practices</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Reduce backlog in the data updation</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">DGPS coordinates can not be used in case of multiple overlapping cables and lines due to requirements of offsets to represent network in a 2D dataset </span></span></li>
</ul><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Use As-built drawing as base and Validate features in the field using limited survey</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Use the survey control points to realign the features in the As-built drawing</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Use an acceptable amount of offset from a reference line feature if there are valid junction features. For ex., bundle of cables in a trench etc</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Use digital data for mobile field operations on GPS enabled PDAs with a backdrop of landbase showing work area</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
</ul><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Improve Data Editing operations</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Standardization of geo-referencing and data updation procedure</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Spatial realignment of network features using Survey points during as-built updation</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Rectified GIS data should be uploaded regularly on daily /weekly basis</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
</ul></ul><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">Project Management Issues</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Understanding of the SoW and Objectives </span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Work to set goals all can share </span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Just because we can do something does not imply that we should.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">High accuracy is too costly to achieve and even more to utilize it later</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
</ul><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Don’t rush</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Understanding project priorities help you develop sensible timelines</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
</ul><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Don’t throw people at problem solving</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Continuously train people and then deploy</span></span></li>
</ul><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Quality issues upstream cause problems in downstream </span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Re-engineering must with new technologies</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Don’t let yourself hostage of IT </span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Embrace technology to be efficient and more productive</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
</ul><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Don’t forget the fundamentals </span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Follow the engineering standards for record preparation and keeping</span></span></li>
</ul><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Fix responsibilities and accountability</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Sponsors and vendors both are equally responsible for project success</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
</ul><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Remember the past</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Improve your approach based on the lessons learned</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Do not justify a failed pilot because of its cost</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
</ul></ul></ul><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">Lessons to Remember</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></b></span></div><ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="square"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Implement GIS in a phased manner</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Backlog in the data updation should be reduced to avoid confusion in the field</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Survey control points should be used to compliment for the deficiencies in the landbase and as-built drawings.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Comprehensive survey requirements making a lot of projects uneconomical & technically not feasible also</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">GIS database cannot replace any engineering document like as-built drawings which is supposed to be the single independent document describing as laid details of utilities and technical characteristic of the network.</span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"> <div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;">"DISTRIBUTION AUTOMATION" is crucial for the continued development of Generation, Transmission and Distribution. By attaching an “electronic meter” + CT/PT in the "beginning and end" of each Feeder and also put an ‘electronic meter’ + TC output of each Distribution Transformer we can monitor these Feeders along its entire length and to establish accurate levels of "Technical Losses" of these Feeders. </span><br />
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</div></div>Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4688345555703606635.post-84626823521493329032010-04-30T21:53:00.000-07:002014-10-16T03:37:40.640-07:00Standardisation of Data and Technology for Smart Grid<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Thanks in part to the government stimulus money with mandated time limits, and other "green" incentives, the implementations of facility BMS, EMS, GIS, DGPS Survey for data and smart meter projects are proceeding full speed ahead and damn any standards that get in the way. </div>
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There are many diverse aspects to the smart grid but one of the most intriguing is the application of intelligence to the transmission and distribution grid itself, all the way from the long distance transmission lines, to the local substations, distribution lines and ultimately the (smart) meters. The upgrade of the grid is not so much in the transmission and distribution equipment itself which but rather in the overlaying of an intelligent network that aggregates data from across the grid to enable the utilities to better manage the transmission and distribution functions, localize and isolate faults and integrate renewable power sources while preserving the stability and reliability of the grid.</div>
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Data is another area of serious concern.Utilities have either not maintained this data and/ or were not following standards for the maintenance of engineering records. They now look at field surveyors to provide the accurate engg. records (in fact better than elec. engg could do). Surveyors have their own concepts of accuracy and correctness. GIS and GPS technology is applied in a very fashionable /casual way without understanding the business requirements and processes. Most of these initiatives are tailormade to consume a particular product and heavily influenced by the vendors. Once initiated in one country these projects are replicated blindly elsewhere and spread like a disease. Ex. a classic case of vendor agent driven misguided utilities in some Gulf countries: few utilities started countrywide geophysical survey (GPR and cable tracing) of buried utilities to map their electrical network for GIS database updation and pilot failed. No lessons learned. Then they went ahead with another project for DGPS survey (20 cm accuracy) of utilities in open trench condition to create the GIS database of utility network. An exercise that guarantees CM level accuracy. How will you accommodate this level of accuracy in a complex network of cables in an urban environment? What is the use of such a high accuracy where everyone feels the existing procedure of as-built preparation is more than enough, if followed properly ? Practice of precision surveys is neither required nor sustainable for any utility where hundreds of changes occur on daily basis. An standardized work flow for the creation of as-built, its submission and entry into GIS would be enough to maintain the sanctity of the engineering records and serve the purpose of O&M staff. <br />
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This same issue of interoperability will be critical to the smart grid as it moves out of the realm of isolated pilot programs and demonstration projects to a more ubiquitous presence. As in the case of cellular networks (or any networks), there are going to be a wide variety of equipment providers involved in the smart grid. Within an individual service area, the utility may choose to work with multiple vendors in order to mitigate both technical and commercial risk. In order to maximize the value of the smart grid, it will be necessary to enable the utilities to have a homogeneous view of this heterogeneous network.<br />
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Standardization of business processes is more important than the technology implementation to justify the RoI. Vendors should never dictate the way things should move. Now we see a lot of RFPs and projects where you can easily see that "Failure " is in-built in the form of vague SoW, no standards for data and technology and irrational timelines. Technology should be used to facilitate the implementation in a phased manner and thus the standards will be defined by the experts and not by the agents of vendors who are interested only in selling their products. <br /><br />
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Dr Ajay Srivastavahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02728947169587443373noreply@blogger.com1