New software to end infrastructure woes

Sufia Tippu / TNN / Mar 22, 2006, 23:54 IST

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Aurigo Software has developed a product to help organisations inspect, track and manage infrastructure projects.

BANGALORE: It's ironic that a Bangalore-based IT firm is providing software solutions to monitor the entire New York City Transit (NYCT), one of the world's most complex transportation systems covering bus and subway systems.
There are several other city-based firms that are handling such big projects abroad, while Bangalore itself is crumbling under infrastructure woes.
But two 30-year-old Bangaloreans are trying to remedy this. Balaji Sreenivasan and Deepak Pulipati's Aurigo Software has developed a product to help organisations inspect, track and manage infrastructure projects.
The company has been in talks with the BDA, the infrastructure secretary as well as the BIAL to deploy its product in these projects. "We are not being driven by the commercial aspect here.

Price is not an issue for us �� we are willing to work on pilot projects and have also spoken with the infrastructure secretary and offered to install it as a pilot for the Devanahalli airport.
Money is important, but right now when the whole world is talking about Bangalore's infrastructure problems, we feel if we can make things better here, we will eventually profit from it," says Sreenivasan...
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This is against the background of Karnataka losing two major projects �� the $3 billion semiconductor hardware park which had gone to Hyderabad and the $150 million Nokia Telecom Park bagged by Tamil Nadu �� all on account of poor infrastructure.

"If you take any large infrastructure project spread over 500 or more acres, the project head is inundated with hundreds of inspection reports as well as aerial views.
It's not possible to clear them manually everyday and papers just tend to pile up, leading to cost overruns and delayed schedules.
Our software tracks each inspection report with global positioning system (GPS) co-ordinates so that the leader is aware of where exactly the hurdles lie," explains Sreenivasan.
Apart from partnering with Microsoft, Intel, Primavera and Trimble, Aurigo is also working with Google Earth for its GPS projects in the US. "We would like to meet the chief minister too.
We have been getting good signals from him regarding his attempts to improve the infrastructure," says Pulipati...
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Meanwhile, Aurigo is working with the National Institute of Construction Management and Research to train students in managing and tracking infrastructural projects.
Says Ajit Patwardhan, dean, NICMAR, "We are also working with Aurigo to come out with a India-specific product which should be ready in three months."

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