BRO highway engineering institute to come up in city

The BRO,which has been building and maintaining roads on difficult terrain along border areas of the country,will soon have its Officers’ Highway Engineering Institute (OHEI) come up in the city. The high-end academy,as the BRO officials call it,will train existing engineers of BRO and its sister organisations on the Pune campus.

The authorities have been contemplating on setting up the institute within the campus of College of Military Engineering (CME) in Dapodi.

Officials of the BRO,in a written reply to questions asked by The Indian Express,said,“A need was felt to have a higher end Highway Engineering Academy for training officers of BRO and its sister organisations so as to put to good use its repository of the huge knowledge of its cadres. The institute has been conceived to now temporarily come up with the help of CME,within its campus at Dapodi.”

While the budgets sanctioned for the project were not disclosed,the officials said the academy will be functional in the coming year.

Commenting on the training to be imparted at the institute,the statement said,“Since in-house well-trained,technically proficient and dedicated experts are available (at CME),no problems concerning the faculty are envisaged.”

The BRO has till date developed road network of over 48,300 km over five decades. The organisation has 18 projects with international presence in Bhutan,Afghanistan and Myanmar. Currently,the city hosts BRO’s two workshops for the overhaul of its plant/ equipment costing Rs 650 crore,in addition to a training centre and stores depot. Parallel to the Academy,a Research and Development (R&D) establishment specific to BRO is in the pipeline. “The R&D establishment has been conceived to come up in Guwahati,the skeleton of which has already come up at the directorate in New Delhi,” the official reply said.