PM Modi reviews IIT Mandi’s low-cost landslide monitoring, early warning system

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the landslide monitoring and early warning system developed by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi during his visit to Mandi, Himachal Pradesh. The one-of-its-kind device reduces landslides by predicting the soil movement in advance.

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Varun Dutt, associate professor, school of computing and electrical engineering, and K V Uday, assistant professor, school of engineering developed this device that is an economical alternative to conventionally used landslide monitoring systems. The selling price of the system with its sensors and alerting mechanism is about Rs 1 lakh, which is nearly 200 times lower than a conventional counterpart that runs into crores of rupees, as per an IIT Mandi statement.

PM Modi reviews landslide monitoring system created by IIT Mandi's engineering professors.

Four patents have been filed on the developed system and it will be made commercially available through a faculty-led startup, Intiot Services Pvt Ltd, India (iiots.in).

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IIT Mandi’s system saves people from disaster

So far, 18 systems have been deployed in Mandi district apart from three systems in Balianala (Nainital district), Uttrakhand; three at Dharampur along the Kalka - Shimla track of the Indian Railways, and, three systems at Sirmaur district, Himachal Pradesh.

IIT Mandi's landslide monitoring team

According to the IIT Mandi statement, on July 27, 2018, the system prevented a tragedy at Kutropi located along the Mandi – Joginder Nagar National Highway due to rains and a flash flood. The system issued a warning minutes before the disaster. Police stopped traffic before the flash flood to avoid a huge disaster from taking place. The road was washed away due to the flash flood, but no one on the road was affected due to the timely warning.

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The System provides soil movement alerts via hooters and blinkers installed on the road remotely via text message. Along with that, the System sends rainfall alerts in advance if more than 5 mm of rain is predicted. Landslides are predicted 10 minutes before they actually occur by monitoring changes in soil movement. The System also predicts extreme weather occurrences with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.