Between 4th & 5th December 2008, Indian Society for Trenchless Technology (IndSTT), supported by several associates organizations had successfully organized “Mega Drill Show” at India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi.

The show had 4 sub events namely release of Reference Manual, Workshop, Exhibition and Round Table Conference.

The event started with welcome address delivered by Mr. P.R. Swarup, Director General, Construction Industry Development Council (CIDC). After the address, General Condition of Contract for HDD Crossing (GCC-HDD) and Model Consultancy Contract for HDD Crossing (MCC-HDD) & “No Dig India” journal were released by Mr. P.R.Swarup Director General CIDC, and Mr. Peng Wang of M/s Drillto. These books were accepted by the audience with great applause.

After the inauguration, the Ditch Witch workshop was held in the forenoon session. It was explained by Prof. Niranjan Swarup, Executive Director IndSTT that due to recent terror attacks in Mumbai, forced the presenters of two workshop to cancel their trips to New Delhi and Ditch Witch workshop was conducted through webex conferencing between India, US and Singapore. Ditch Witch workshop covering mixed soil & rock drilling was conducted by Dr. Garald Stangl and Mr. Richard Levings through webex. A detailed presentation set was also provided to the participants during the workshop.

In the afternoon session the Ranaul workshop was conducted by Mr. Ranabir Paul, Mr. Griesinger and Mr. Tapan Sarkar where the Hydraulics of HDD machine was explained in detail by Mr. Ranabir Paul & Mr. Griesinger.

From the same day product and service display was also started. There were 16 display stands where exhibitors had brisk business interaction with participants. This was equally successful as the stands had a huge foot falls beyond our expectation. 4 nos of HDD rigs were also displayed in the exhibition area by different manufacturer and as per information provided by the exhibitors 5 rigs were sold during the event. A huge number of visitors apart from the delegates have visited the exhibition stall and interacted with the various service providers. Day 1 had 250recorded visitors foot falls and day 2 had 150. In addition to the registered foot falls, floating visitors foot falls for these days has been estimated to be around 100 for each day.  A small function was also held in the exhibition ground to hand over the keys of the sold out rigs. As per the reports substantial business was conducted during the sub events.

The mega offer to the particiants included for Maruti Suzuki Alto Car/ Moter byke on purchase of Drill to HDD Rigs, free testing camp for DCI tracking tools and employment fare where 200 supervitors  were offered by CIDC. All the three offers were received with keen interest and may participants availed these offers.

In the post lunch session, the intricacies of Drill Rods and selection of Drill Rods were discussed by Mr. Ranabir Paul along with Drilling fluids.

As explained earlier, the fourth workshop (Inrock Workshop) could not be held and postponed for the time being due to the reason that the recent terror attack in Mumbai forced the presenter to cancel the trip to New Delhi.

The subevents ended with round table conference with stakeholders to chart the future course of action for all the stakeholders in HDD activities. The participants were drawn from across the industry like, Owner/Client, Consultant and Service Providers where various issues related to promotion of HDD applications in India were discussed. Recommendations of the round table are now being compiled and shall be released soon.

IndSTT on behalf of all its stakeholders conveys its thanks to all the people who supported it whole heartedly in this event.

A list of the exhibitor in given in annexure I.