The development in technology has been tremendous since the dawn of the millennium. The pace of life has been increased and places far away have come closer, all due to technology. From communication to travel to ease of business, people expect everything to be rapid. Considering the importance, the Government of India is taking leap jumps towards digitization and technology integration.
Since last few years, he is dedicatedly but quietly and strategically working towards digitization of the Government sectors to enhance transparency and speed of execution step by step. His contribution towards the development of Government Public Procurement Portal is remarkable.
People related to the public procurement portal project still talk about his dedicated working of 18 to 20 hours daily in mission mode for months. The Public Procurement Portal proved to be the stepping stone towards enhancing the transparency in government tendering process by use of technology in large scale.
After implementation of e-Tendering, he stirred to next step to create a large-scale cloud-based software platform known as e-MB, for quality check and digital recording of measurement of works implemented on project site. The e-MB became so popular in the engineering network that it was quickly adopted by many State Governments and PSUs like hotcake. The e-MB not only digitally records the measurements of a project executed but also brings it in the public view to enhance transparency by eliminating the grey areas of the construction industry. This generated a momentum of digitization in the construction industry field and paved way for the development of many such software applications of project monitoring in the market.
Many latest technologies were integrated by him for project monitoring like Drones, IP cameras, GIS-based technologies, Mobile Apps etc. for better monitoring & quick decision making. Shri Akhilesh Srivastava recently developed Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) mechanism along with Construction Industry Arbitration Council (CIAC), first of its kind in India. The ODR portal is launched by Honorable Vice President of India Shri Venkaiah Naidu Ji on 23 April 2018. The ODR has the potential to revolutionize the dispute resolution industry of India by creating a lot of job for the techno-legal youth of India and positioning India as a favourite destination of International Arbitrations. This will boost the GDP growth of India.
Due to him and his team’s global expertise in the application of technology, the NHAI has already managed to implement best of the techno-managerial initiatives in the highway infrastructure that are helping in enhancing the standard of living for the citizens.
Some of the projects that have been adding to the glory of NHAI and Indian Highway Infrastructure Sector under the expert supervision of Shri Akhilesh Srivastava are:
- Project Management Information System (PMIS)
- Road Asset Management System (RAMS)
- Drones and Remote Sensing for Highway Projects
- Traffic Incident Management System (TIMS).
- GPS-enabled ambulances, patrol vehicles, and cranes with central Command & Control as part of the TIMS
- Electronic Toll Collection (ETC)
- NHAI – Sukhad Yatra Mobile App
- New website for the NHAI
- New surveillance mechanism using IP cameras
- 24X7 uniform Emergency helpline 1033 for Highway users
- Construction of public toilets on national highways
- Conducting pilot for GPS based Tolling or Pay-As-You-Use distance-based tolling
Considering his extraordinary contribution to the construction industry, Mr Akhilesh Srivastava has recently decorated with the lifetime achievement award the prestigious Vishwakarma Award for his accomplishments and contributions to the Government & Public sector on 7th March 2018 at New Delhi. The award was the CIDC (an affiliated body of Niti Ayog the think tank of Indian policy making) attempt to recognize his efforts of the committed change-makers in the public sector. The Award jury had few of the most prominent bureaucrats and officials from the Construction Industry of India. They have selected the awardees considering the factors such as their work history, success rate, public and private parties’ suggestions, and more.
He has been nominated as Member of Board of Governors of Engineering Council of India (ECI) and International Council of Consultants (ICC) apart from honorary advisor to various IITs and smart city projects on the technological issue.
All these accomplishments and contributions say a lot about Shri Akhilesh Srivastava and his skills in the field of technology as how he has been instrumental in taking India at a whole new level of advanced technology-driven infrastructure.