OUT OF BOX APPROACH FOR USE OF OUR INSTITUTIONS TO PARTICIPATE EFFECTIVELY IN COUNTRY

DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF RESEARCH IN CONSTRUCTIVE WAY

1. I want to share my personnel experience after 28 years Group A officer and at JS

equivalent level 5 years service joined part PhD in NIT Silchar on live and practical problems/issues and
six years hard work I could complete in May 2015.What I have observed that most research confined to
Library and in theory. Though it was difficult me for completing but the end result was best possible
solution to problem and my first time innovative idea of Cut and Cover structure at Sonapur(Old NH-44)
in world solved the twenty year perpetual problem of more than 16 Million population of four affected
NE States Tripura , Mizoram , Manipur and part of Assam. Similar structure was replicated on Sewak-
Gangtok at Bardang landslide. A number of perpetual trouble spots were solved in the process of my
part PhD .This shows if research work carried actual live problem of our country in various field it will
solve many problem and optimize the various function. It was also observed that most of Institutions
find difficult to select topic for research and the real field live problem will also be addressed it is win-
win situation for both Institutions , Govt and Industry. The Govt and Industry can provide the problem
statement and also prove research scholars the field facilities and stay and transports. Recently I had
carried a detailed discussion with HOD IIT Guwahati to take some our field issue and I found
encouraging results.

2. Therefore it is proposed to begin with at 10% research work in all IIT’s and NIT’s for
PhD and Mtech be considered for real life problems , and Industry issues for innovative solution and if it
is found useful this can be increased to 20% later on.

3. It is satisfying that few months back I had suggested in My Gov in that the large number
of seats remains vacant in various engineering college and these spare capacity can be effectively used
for Skill development as these are readymade infrastructures available to our nation and same I read in
news paper that Govt of India is actively considering to make use the sparer infrastructure for Skill
development.

4. Abstract of research work is given below.

 ABSTRACT

Landslides along the mountainous ranges of the Himalaya facing India are common
problem due to immature and rugged topography ,fragile rock conditions ,proximity to
tectonically thrust plates , high rainfall ,deforestation , unscientific land use , disturbance to
stable slopes etc, Out of these causes , rainfall is considered the most severe , since
maximum number of slides occurs during or soon after monsoon period. There is
increasing trend of loss of life due burring in landslide debris i.e. Malapa , Sikkim
cloudburst 2012, Uttarakhand 2013 , Malin 2014 and same is increasing. Identification of
vulnerable hill slopes, in hilly areas and relocation of population, from these areas to safer
places is the need of hour. A hill slope become unstable after full saturation and thus major
slides occurs soon after a long duration rainfall .A detailed investigation is carried out on
possibility of landslides due to increased saturation level. Reduction of shear strength
parameters due to increase in water content has been studied in detail. It is observed that
otherwise stable slopes become unstable after complete saturation .Even hill slopes with
rock outcrops shows lesser strength with increase in pore pressure .Decrease in shear
strength with increase in water content or increase in pore pressure is a known phenomena
but proper documentation is not available for Sikkim region and Sonapur landslide area. It
is also not known how much quantity of debris may roll down during and after monsoon
period so that, the adequate measures may be taken before hand to curtail the human
suffering to a minimum level. Present study includes a probabilistic approach to predict the
probability of occurrence of minor slide with a volume of debris 30- 100 Cum , medium
slide 100-500 cum and large slide 500- 2000 cum in a month. The probability curve shows
two peaks in July and another in September/Oct , indicating that the probability of
occurrence of large slide is high during retreat of monsoon by then most of the slopes are
saturated that end Sept and Oct first week .

The present also includes seismic slope stability analysis through pseudo-static
approach to understand the behavior of slopes under an earthquake. Although the method,
is not very precise, yet a, preliminary knowledge to, calculate the deformation from a
ground acceleration –time record. An example is shown to calculate the deformation of
given slope due to 18 September, 2011 Sikkim earthquake (Mw= 6.8). The study will be
useful to understand the behavior of slopes due to a major earthquake .With available data
of last 133 years a seismicity map of Sikkim is obtained. Sikkim hazard map for some
major landslides have also been obtained; the procedure may be extended to any site
located in Sikkim.

Once it is obtained that a slope is unstable, possible remedial measures like soil
nailing , gabions walls , retaining walls , benching , toe loading etc as per site requirements
have been studied .Application of remedial measures is site specific, since every remedial
measure is not applicable to each slope .For an example gabion wall may not be applicable
for a steep slope, with minimum road width, or soil nailing may not be applicable for a
high slope and so on. A table is given showing probable site specific remedial measures.
Where, site specific remedial measures are in applicable as a last resort avoidance in the
form for tunneling and long span bridges are suggested to be adopted. The cut & cover
tunneling normally increase the loading, thereby imparting stability of slided mass.
Based on past records and three active landslides in Sikkim and one in Meghalaya,
namely Sonapur have been selected for study. All the selected landslides have past record
of road closure imposing a great suffering to 16 Million people living Sikkim, Tripura,

Mizoram, Manipur and southern part of Assam. The remedial measures in the form of cut
and cover tunnel adopted as per outcome the present study is working satisfactorily. There
is no record of record of road closure after construction of this innovative structure .The
experience is adopted in a similar type of trouble spot area in Bardang in Sikkim, where
landslide has been totally stopped once the cut & cover structure is constructed. Backfilling
of intermediate portion between the tunnel and the hill slope is yet to be done, but the
problem is absolutely solved till today. The risk if failure of a tunnel during construction
due to the impact of rolling debris is also studied.

In conclusion, the present study includes selection of some active landslide areas in
Sikkim and one in Meghalaya at Sonapur, collection of rainfall data and landslide data,
carrying out probabilistic study on occurrence of landslide in a month and obtaining the
seismic hazard map of the selected areas. Although rainfall is observed to be the main
cause of landslides, seismic activity also triggers landslide. Out of many site specific
remedial measures suggested in this study, cut and cover tunnel proves to be an effective
one in some of the active landslide areas and new concept in the form of an experimental
structure constructed from the present study, performed satisfactorily against an active
landslide in Indian Himalayas first time and solved 20 years perpetual trouble spot at
Sonapur(NH-44) and providing great relief to 16 million population dependent on it and
one more similar structure at Bardang (NH-31A) solved a perpetual trouble spot for
Sikkim. The methodology followed for present study can be extended for many more hilly
area and trouble spots with site specific approach to solve in phased manner by a number
of studies by premier technical institutes.