Page 1 of 16

Minutes of the

Brain Storming Session on

Environmental Geotechnics

January 24-25, 2017

under the aegis of

Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB)Department of Science and Technology (DST)

India

Organized by

Department of Civil EngineeringIndian Institute of Technology Bombay

Mumbai-400076

Page 2 of 16

Agenda:

Key areas of research and applications

Industry-academia interaction

Nurture and support researchers for taking up challenging engineering problems related to Environmental Geotechnics (EG)

Pilot scale solutions and working models

Collaboration between researchers and professionals from different background to develop novel and interdisciplinary approaches

Finalization of themes for developing research proposals to be submitted to DST-SERB for funding

Venue: Conference Room, Ronil Resort, Goa

Participants:

Name AffiliationM. S. Ananth Former Director, IIT Madras

Satyendra Narayan Sheridan Institute of Technology, Canada

Suresh Bhargava RMIT University, Australia

Rakesh Kumar NEERI, nagpur

Charles Knapp University of Strathclyde, UK

Madhukar KotwalFormer Member of the Board and President Heavy

Engineering, L&T

Prashant S Phale IIT Bombay

Kiran Kondabagil IIT Bombay

R. R. SondeTechnology and Innovation Center, Thermax Ltd.,

Pune

Nicholas Hytiris Glasgow Caledonian University

M. S. Baghini IIT Bombay

Gopalkrishna Maxim India Integrated Circuit Design Pvt. Ltd.

Ashish Gharpure Genstru Consultants Pvt. Ltd., Pune

Hishmi Jamil Husain Rio Tinto, New Delhi

Amit Sen GuptaOBGYN-Fortis Hospitals-N.Mumbai; Out Reach

Program, RKSS-VTH; Adjunct Prof. IIT-D/DA-IICT

Ashok Ghosh Mahavir Cancer Research Institute and Research

Page 3 of 16

Centre, Patna

Anukul Jana TCIS, Hyderabad

S. K. Sharma IIT Varanasi

M. N. Bagde CIMFR, Nagpur

Santanu Misra IIT Kanpur

Prabhat Munshi IIT Kanpur

Prasenjit Basu IIT Bombay

Santiram Chatterjee IIT Bombay

S. S. SharmaFormer Director, Snow and Avalanche Study

Establishment (DRDO )

Varun JoshiGuru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New

Delhi

B. M. Sunil NITK, Surathkal

Vemula Anand Reddy SVNIT, Surat

Dali Naidu Arnepalli IIT Madras

Prasad Bartake Engineering & Research International LLC, U.A.E.

Hanumanth Rao IIT Bhubaneswar

Harshvardhan Singh NEERI, Nagpur

Venkata Bharat Tadikonda IIT Guwahati

Uday Kala IIT Mandi

Sreedeep S. IIT Guwahati

Sarat Das National Institute of Technology, Rourkela

R. N. Behera National Institute of Technology Rourkela

K. Balakrishna Manipal University

Vandana Sreedharan Govt. Engg. College, Kannur

Shanthakumar S. VIT University, Vellore

Anjan Patel VNIT, Nagpur

Rajagopalan Varadarajan Anna University, Trichy

B. Narasinga RaoAnil Neerukonda Institute of Technology and

Sciences, Sangivalasa

R. K. Dubey IIT(ISM), Dhanbad

Elango Lakshmanan Anna University, Chennai

Dr.G.Venkatesan University College of Engineering (BIT Campus),

Page 4 of 16

Anna University,Truchirappalli

R. R. Rakesh BARC, Trombay

V. K. Patil BTRA, Mumbai

Amit Agrawal IIT Bombay

Goutam Banerjee IIT BHU, Varanasi

N. R. Patra IIT Kanpur

Vinay ChaudharySnow & Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE-

DRDO)

V.K. Arora NIT Kurukshetra

Rakesh Chopra Indian Railway-Engineering

Hirok Chaudhuri NIT Durgapur

Supriya Pal NIT Durgapur

Chandresh Solanki SVNIT, Surat

B. S. Patil IIT Bombay

Ashok Saraf Syslab Automation Pvt. Ltd., Pune

Kishore Kumar CRRI, New Delhi

Saineesh Vinjamuri IIT Bombay

Srikanth Kandalai IIT Bombay

Shashank B.S. IIT Bombay

Rakshith Shetty IIT Bombay

Sowmya S. IIT Bombay

Agnes Anto IIT Bombay

Jeevan Joseph IIT Bombay

Sanyam Dangayach IIT Bombay

Ganaraj JK IIT Bombay

Somenath Mondal IIT Bombay

Arif Mohamed IIT Bombay

Anand Samuel Intern, IIT Bombay

Online participantsMegan Hart University of Missouri, Kansas City

Abhijit Mukherjee Curtin University, Australia

Frederick Pellet MINES-Paris Rech, France

Nikolai Bobylev Saint Petersburg State University, Russia

Maurice Dusseault University of Waterloo, Canada

Page 5 of 16

Majid Sedighi University of Manchester, UK

Mojgan Hadi Mosleh Imperial College, London, UK

Borbala Biro Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary

Events:

First session: 9.00 amto 1.10 pm on 24th January, 2017

Prof. D.N. Singh welcomed the delegates from all over the world. The delegates introduced themselves, followed by an overview of the session by Prof. Singh. He urged the scientists and technologists to come out of compartmentalization and expressed the need to promote inter-disciplinary, inter-institutional, national and international collaborations. He also mentioned the major themes to be discussed namely, energy geotechnics, sustainability, instrumentation and sensing, cold region geomechanics, bio-geo interface, contamination in geo-environment, carbon sequestration, education and practice.

Prof. S.S. Kohli, Dr. Pankanj Rawat and Dr. Ananth Ramaswamy from DST-SERB wished the session a great success. They welcomed the submission of interdisciplinary research proposals directed towards holistic solutions on environmental issues to DST-SERB for possible funding. They also emphasized on the available industry-academia grants such as High risk, high reward and expressed the session would deliver high quality research proposals.

Dr. Nagesh Iyer, Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research (AcSIR) and former, Director, CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre (SERC) conveyed his wishes through audio clipping and encouraged the participants to undertake cross disciplinary research approach in forming proposals for funding.

The skype interaction planned with Dr. Megan L. Hart from the University of Missouri, Kansas City was interrupted due to technical issues.

Prof. P. P. Majumdar, IISc Bangalore, expressed his concern regarding the lack of quality proposals in the Civil Engineering discipline and urged the young researchers to develop good proposals on various challenging issues related to the environment.

The first presentation was delivered by Prof. M.S. Ananth, former Director of IIT Madras. He briefed on three different research approaches (Pure Basic Research, Use-inspired Basic Research and Pure Applied Research) and asked the delegates to shed off obsolete ideas and undertake challenges at

Page 6 of 16

the national and global scenario. Further, he emphasized on the idea of “Bringing Unlike Minds Together” with respect to internationalization, inter-disciplinarity and University Research Parks. He also shared his experience on different aspects related to IIT Madras Research Park.

Prof. Satyendra Narayan from Sheridan Institute of Technology, Canada discussed on the application of mathematical modelling in geophysics and geoengineering. He also spoke about the various research projects executed by his team in India and South Asia with funding from Canada.

Prof. Suresh Bhargava from RMIT University, Australia highlighted the need for taking ideas beyond the boundaries. He stated that collaboration is no longer “nice to have” but a “competitive necessity”. However, he warned against the idea of “global collaboration” misinterpreted to be “outsourcing”. He spoke on the Gandhian Engineering and discussed research cases that were undertaken by his team on mercury contamination and mining issues. He emphasized on the necessity to bring research to market via industry-academia collaboration and shared his experience on building multidisciplinary research platform.

Dr. Rakesh Kumar from NEERI spoke on the projects executed by them related to contamination, phytoremediation, disposal of waste water, power supply, wetland concept for accelerated sludge removal. He also advocated on the necessity of “scientists talking to engineers”.

Dr. Charles W. Knapp from the University of Strathclyde, UK discussed on the topic “Sticky MESS - Microbially enhanced soil stabilization”. He elucidated on the impact and application of biofilm in geomechanics and emphasized on the need for microbiological studies in soil geomechanics. He also expressed his interest in collaborating with the researchers in the area of clay microbe interaction.

Dr. Madhukar Kotwal, Former Member of the Board and President Heavy Engineering, L&T shared his experience on the establishment of nuclear energy in India and significance of indigenous design development. He also spoke on the strategic strengths, future possibilities and pre-requisites in the Indian Nuclear Power Sector.

Prof. Prashant Phale from Department of Bioscience and Bioengineering, IIT Bombay presented on bioactivity in nature. He discussed on association of microorganisms with soil, its beneficial activities and commercial exploitations

Prof. Kiran Kondabagil from Department of Bioscience and Bioengineering, IIT Bombay emphasized on the role of viruses as the major drivers of the ecosystem. He also gave an overview of various microbial processes, its impact on the soil properties and molecular and genomic analysis of soil microbial communities. Further, he threw light on the limitations and challenges in the field scale application of microbes.

Page 7 of 16

Dr. R.R. Sonde from Technology and Innovation Center discussed on the Geothermal Energy as an energy security for India. He expressed his concern on the diminishing interest in funding research in this area. Also, he briefed on the various aspects of the Geothermal power plant and urged that India has to take credible steps in exploring this energy source.

Second session: 2.15 pm to 7.00 pm on 24th January, 2017

Prof. Abhijit Mukherjee from Curtin University, Australia interacted through Skype on MICP and its application.

Prof. Nicholas Hytiris and Dr. Ninikas K from Glasgow Caledonian University presented on heat energy recovery from subsurface water and air. They discussed on the thermal potential in Glasgow’s abandoned mines and developing Energy Map.

Prof. Frédéric Pellet from MINES-Paris Rech, France interacted with the delegates through Skype. He spoke on geomechanical and reactive transport modeling, geomechanical issues in underground radioactive waste disposals, modeling of Excavation Damage Zone (EDZ), containment properties and performance assessment and enhanced geothermal systems.

Prof. Nikolai Bobylev from Saint Petersburg State University, Russia was available on skype and discussed on current research in planning and design for utilization of underground space in urban areas.

Prof. Maryam Shojaei Baghini from Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay shared her expertise in the area of sensors and transducers, sensor interfacing, low-noise and noise-immune instrumentation, circuits and systems for environmental geotechnical applications. She also expressed interest in collaborating on projects pertaining to developing in situ sensors and systems for characterizing soil, water and air, soil cleansing and energy harvesting from the soil.

Mr. Gopal Krishna from Maxim India Integrated Circuit Design Pvt. Ltd. urged the delegates to set up audacious goals in research and articulated the importance of impact measurement of projects. He was inquisitive in finding possibilities for awards and recognition with academia-industry collaboration.

Mr. Ashish Gharpure from Genstru Consultants Pvt. Ltd. spoke on projects and technologies related to rockfall and landslide mitigation in the hilly regions of India. He enunciated on the necessity of developing new products indigenously targeted to our needs, catering to local conditions at optimized cost.

Dr. Hishmi Jamil Husain from Rio Tinto shared ideas on sustainable mining with emphasis on socio-environmental issues. He talked about the concept of research design to consider industrial challenges viz., environmental impact

Page 8 of 16

reduction & mitigation, closure plan, cost effectiveness and stakeholder engagement to get the approvals in time. He highlighted the importance of closure planning framework which can be applied to all stages of project development that can be updated as additional information (social, environmental, mining and economic) becomes available. This inturn helps in reducing development, operation and closure cost. He also addressed the challenges and strategies in context to mine closure.

Prof. Maurice B. Dusseault from the University of Waterloo, Canada communicated through Skype on the issues pertaining to deep process geomechanics particularly on deep geothermal energy storage, deep granular waste disposal.

Due to the time constraint, the detailed presentation session ended at 5.30 pm. This was followed by brief presentation by the remaining participants on their expertise and possible areas of research collaborations (Table below).

Speakers Topic

Amit Sen Gupta Geo environmental stress & sustainable development-game changing solutions

Ashok Ghosh Arsenic Mobilisation in the Ganga Fluvial plain

Anukul Jana Functionalization of CO2 Involving Compounds of Main Group Elements

S. K. Sharma Environmental Geotechnics vis-à-vis mining applications

M. N. Bagde Reclamation of open quarries land with fly-ash and waste rock based suitably developed material

Santanu Misra Enhanced coal bed methane (ECBM) recovery and geological CO2 sequestration (GCS)

Prabhat Munshi Computerized Tomography for Earth Sciences

Prasenjit Basu Energy harvesting through heat exchanger piles: A pilot-scale implementation plan for India

Santiram Chatterjee

Deepwater Hydrocarbon Exploration – A Shift in Design Paradigm Considering Thermo-Mechanical Pipe-Soil Interaction

S. S. Sharma Hollow Catch dams for snow harvesting in High Altitude snow bound areas

Varun Joshi Mitigation of landslides using engineering and bioengineering measures

Page 9 of 16

B. M. Sunil Stabilized Tailing Material

Vemula Anand Reddy

Assessment, Prevention & Mitigation of contaminants from various industrial regions in Gujarat

Dali Naidu Arnepalli Stabilization of Geomaterials: Environmental Geotechnics Perspective

Prasad Bartake Geo-environmental sampling and insitu testing

Hanumanth Rao Sustainable Construction using Waste materials

Harshvardhan Singh Environmental Geotechnics w.r.t. remediation of contaminated sites

Venkata Bharat Tadikonda

Identification, characterization and archiving of Indian clays for geoenvironmental applications

Uday Kala Bio-geotechnical applications for soil stability

Sreedeep S.

Biotechnology for Food SecurityThis presentation assimilated future research goals to tackle the indiscriminate degradation of vital elements of life: food, water and air by integrating the concepts of biotechnology, geotechnology and soil science. The need for the development of environmental friendly drought resistant soils, understand the interaction and interplay of admixture-soil-water-plant and climate change impact on soil-water-plant-atmosphere interaction has been highlighted

Sarat Das Engineered soil from Industrial waste

R. N. Behera Geotechnical characterization of construction and demolition (c&d) waste

K. Balakrishna Emerging contaminants in the waters and wastewaters of India- sources, transport and ultimate fate

Shantha Kumar S. Soil remediation: A phycoremediation approach

Anjan Patel Soil stabilization using plastic waste generated carbon nanotubes

V. Rajagopalan Prevention of heavy metals transport by clay admixture in landfill liner system

B. Narasinga Rao Utilization of fly ash for civil engineering applications

R. K. Dubey Geotechnical prospective of energy in argillites

G.Venkatesan Permeable reactive barrier application in solid waste landfills

R. R. Rakesh Responses of geological repository under simulated operating

Page 10 of 16

conditions

V. K. Patil Environmental geotechnique

Goutam Banerjee Ground water recharging: Devices and quality issues

N. R. Patra Materials

Vinay Chaudhary Avalanche Defence structures using pile construction; benefits and challenges

Hirok Chaudhuri Exploration of Geothermal Power at Bakreswar hot spring site

Supriya PalConversion of natural jute geotextile (JGT) to accustom long term sustainability and durability for its wide application in flexible pavement systems

Chandresh Solanki

Assessment, Prevention & Mitigation of contaminanats from various industrial regions in Gujarat

B. S. Patil Development of Integrated Treatment Facility for MSW

Ashok Saraf Instrumentation

Kishore KumarHighway slope management and forecasting system for disaster resistant and environmentally sustainable highways in Indian Himalayan Regions.

The session was closed with vote of thanks by Dr. S.S. Kohli and Dr. Pankaj Rawat.

Page 11 of 16

Third session: 9:00 am to 11:00 am on 25th January, 2017

The session was facilitated by Prof. D.N. Singh. The delegates came forward as teams and disclosed their topic of interest. Based on the discussion and inputs by DST-SERB officials, 11 research teams were finalized and were directed to submit the proposals at the earliest.

The proposed themes and team members are as follows:

Theme 1: Sustainable mining Team:

Prof. S.K. Sharma, IIT Durgapur (Nodal point) Dr. Supriya Pal Dr. Manoj Bagde Prof. SantanuMisra Dr. Venkata Bharat Tadikonda Dr. J. H. Hishmi Dr. B.M. Sunil University of Strathclyde (International Collaborator)

Theme 2: Energy harvesting from mine waste water Team:

Dr. Harshvardhan Singh, NEERI (Nodal point) Dr. J. H. Hishmi Dr. Nicholas Hytiris (International Collaborator) Dr. Kostas Ninikas (International Collaborator)

Theme 3: Energy harvesting from water bodiesTeam:

Prof. Amit Agrawal, IIT Bombay (Nodal point) Dr. Hirok Chaudhuri Dr. PrasenjitBasu Dr. Nicholas Hytiris (International Collaborator) Dr. Kostas Ninikas (International Collaborator) Prof. Suresh Bhargava (Advisor)

Theme 4: Geothermal energy from shallow depthTeam:

Dr. PrasenjitBasu, IIT Bombay (Nodal point) Prof. SantanuMisra Prof. Satyendra Narayan (International Collaborator) Prof. Dusseault Maurice (International Collaborator)

Theme 5: Deep disposal of wasteTeam:

Prof. Satyendra Narayan (Nodal point) (International Collaborator) Dr. A. Dali Naidu Dr. Manoj Bagde

Theme 6: Mine closure

Page 12 of 16

Team: Dr. Manoj Bagde (Nodal point) Prof. Satyendra Narayan (International Collaborator) Dr. Rabi Narayan Behera Dr. Venkata Bharat Tadikonda

Theme 7: Ground water contamination and remediation (3 projects)Team:

Prof. Ashok Ghosh (Nodal point) Representative from NEERI (to be provided by Dr. Rakesh Kumar) Dr. Shanthakumar S. Dr. Supriya Pal Prof. Prashant Phale Prof. Kiran Kondabagil Dr. Venkatesan G. Dr. Uday Kala Prof. Rajagopalan Varadarajan Prof. K Balakrishna Hydrogeology group, University of Strathclyde (International

Collaborator) Prof. Suresh Bhargava (Advisor)

Theme 8: Energy harvesting from airTeam:

Dr. Rakesh Kumar, NEERI (Nodal point) Dr. Nicholas Hytiris (International Collaborator)

Theme 9: Thermo-hydro-geo energyTeam:

Dr. PrasenjitBasu, IIT Bombay (Nodal point) Dr. Santiram Chatterjee Prof. Maryam ShojaeiBaghini Dr. Hirok Chaudhuri Dr. Nicholas Hytiris (International Collaborator) Dr. Kostas Ninikas (International Collaborator)

Theme 10: Bio-geointerface (3 projects)Team:

Prof. Prashant Phale, Prof. Kiran Kondabagil, Dr. Charles Knapp (Nodal point)

Dr. Seema Bhadauria Dr. Uday Kala Dr. S. Sreedeep Dr. Sarat Das Dr. Dali Naidu Arnepalli Dr. Hanumantha Rao Dr. Vandana Sreedharan Dr. Srinivas Kadali Dr. Shanthakumar S. Prof. C. H. Solanki

Page 13 of 16

Theme 11: Sensors Team:

Prof. M. S. Baghini (Nodal point) Mr. Gopal Krishna (Industrial collaborator) Dr. Uday Kala Dr. Venkata Bharat Tadikonda

Dr. Santanu Misra, IIT Kanpur took the initiative of preparing the list of available equipments in various labs and institutes

Finally, Prof. D.N. Singh concluded the session by thanking the DST officials and the participants.

Theme 12: Cold Region Geomechanics and infrastructure development in frozen groundTeam:

Sh. Vinay Chaudhary (Nodal person) Maj. Gen. S. S. Sharma Dr. Kishore Kumar

Page 14 of 16

Feedback from the participants:

Participants’ feedbacks received via e-mail were compiled as follows:

Name Comments

Gopalkrishna

I reinforce Maxim’s support for sensors and electronic subsystems that could open up new possibilities for research teams, or enhance current methods and functions.

Venkata Bharat Tadikonda

It was a great learning session for me to understand the view-point of industry and academia. I hope the outcome of the session brings the Geotechnical community to work together and the work is useful to the progress of our nation.

R. N. BeheraTo collaborate with Dr. Kamalesh Kumar Tripathi, College of Engineering, Pune.

Rajagopalan

I must mention my deep sense of appreciation for the foreign delegates for sharing their knowledge on Environmental Geotechnics.Both the facts discussed at the session and the opportunity to learn where to go with problems of various natures relating to the Environmental Geotechnics gave the session exceptional value.

B. Narasinga Rao

I wish to add the following remarks for consideration of yourself and DST:1) Fly ash being the perennial challenge in terms of its quantity of disposal annually and pollution of air, land and water, deserves its place in the themes identified by DST in Environmental Geotechnics. 2) If Fly ash mission had failed, it should not stop DST, the country’s leading R&D Funding organization, in supporting R&D efforts on fly ash utilization. Current thrust across the world is on High volume fly ash concrete and fly ash as a fill material.  

Vinay Chaudhary

Not much attention has been given to the Indian Himalayas where local inhabitants and our soldiers who are residing in hostile weather conditions for the sake of our security. If we can do some work for them to make their life better, it would be a privilege for us. In this direction we would like to invite those who wish to collaborate with us for the infrastructure development in hilly and frozen ground.

Chandresh Solanki The session showed the good sign of research propagation in the area environmental geotechnics. My

Page 15 of 16

research scholar Mr. Vemula Anand Reddy has taken lot of inputs regarding soil contamination with Dr. Seema from Agra and Dr. Sunil from NIT Surathkal and also few more. They have provided lot of inputs for the research to be carried out in further years. I would be very thankful to DST-SERB team for their continuous support during the session and sharing the ideas regarding the proposal and its necessary data to be fulfilled for a complete proposal.

Kishore Kumar

It was a unique brainstorming session and first of its kinds I have experienced. I wish, the same is followed in future so that the multidisciplinary, interactive and meaningful deliberations are made before the selection of collaborative themes and teams. I was enriched by the experience and by the deliberation of the learned participants from various countries and organizations.  

Due to paucity of time the topic which I wanted to discuss could not be presented was "Highway slope/Landslide management and forecasting system for disaster resistant and environmentally sustainable highways in Indian Himalayan Regions".  

Though, for the obvious reasons, the above area was not picked for collaboration during Brainstorming RTM, I, still, would like to invite those who may wish to collaborate with us on the above subject.

Threads of E-mail conversations:

Prof. Suresh Bhargava, Mr. Ashok Saraf, Dr. Vinay Chaudhary and Maj. Gen. S.S. Sharma on the issues raised by Dr. Vinay Chaudhary regarding Indian Himalayas and its hostile weather conditions. Mr. Ashok Saraf suggested the following,

Create permanent hot storage spots at 20ft below ground to get warm water up by pump. These would have to be designed for specific capacity with clean and hygienic heat exchanger with storage, reversible pump and delivery company inlet pipe. Such spots would be useful. Soldiers can carry power for pumping. 

Environmental smart geomarkers which would contain coded information about location and also messages or instructions to act as links between visitors to that location. These could be in form of flag posts or stone temples 

Some type of portable lightweight soil compacting solution with chemicals, mechanical equipment, ingenuity 

In situ footwear molding canister like device to create biodegradable/ polyurethane foam to create temporary shield like shoes or shape the terrain.

Page 16 of 16

Research would be required for optimized design and environmental and bio safety considerations. Soldiers can also use it to modify terrain to create steps in slopes. 

If we ask soldiers they would come with their authentic wish list and each would require research project to bring in reality. 

Dr. Vinay Chaudhary listed the grey areas in this field that included, To develop cost effective solution for ‘Widening of exiting road towards valley

side without disturbing/cutting hill side slope (strengthening and raising the  level up to exiting road in valley side)

Stabilization of loose ground having rock debris or moraine,   Shallow foundations in permafrost region Development of special grout for micropiles for extreme cold weather (grout

should have sufficient frost resistant) Pile foundations in permafrost region, Construction of Avalanche defence structures in frozen terrain (having some

creep movement) Construction of highway in frozen ground (levelled ground) Permanent nature of foot step/track on steep slope (have enough strength in

landslide prone area and/or avalanche prone areas)

Maj. Gen. S.S. Sharma considers the following to be of urgent nature and will have wider acceptability by the users, specially the troops:

Creating permanent hot storage spots at 20ft below ground to get warm water up by pump. These would have to be designed for specific capacity with clean and hygienic heat exchanger with storage, reversible pump and delivery company inlet pipe. Such spots would be useful. Soldiers can carry power for pumping.

One may even go deeper to tap the geothermal energy and storage device so that the energy is used when required. The usage could be for space heating, water heating, power generation or any other use. It may be for human waste disposal also which is big problem in high altitude and glaciated areas.

He also suggested for discussion in a forum of a select group members followed by meeting to be held at IIT Bombay. 

Prof. Bhargava commented the proposal as visionary, innovative, collaborative, multidisciplinary but required a team approach and good management to execute. He also said if successful, it will be useful to our nation and will be one of the major outcomes of Goa meet.

Compiled by: Dr. S. Sowmya and Agnes Anto, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Bombay