A VETERAN WHO FEELS PART OF THE
L&T FAMILY
“I have just completed 25 years with L&T on July 1st, 2021, and after all these years, I feel that L&T is like my extended family,” says a proud D Baiju, presently working at the ISP Parwati micro lift irrigation scheme, 1 & 2. “I began my career in the capacity of a Site Supervisor,” Baiju traces his journey with L&T. “Then Site Engineer, Section In-charge and Project Manager for various projects like drinking water supply projects, irrigation projects, steel plant projects, petroleum refinery projects, material handling projects, offshore projects and engineering workshops.” He pauses for a moment before informing that currently he is in charge for pipe fabrication and laying for RMGM since February 2020.
When operations resumed at site post the lockdown, Baiju’s primary concerns were to retain labour and, at the same time, mobilize more to meet the additional requirements. “We obtained special permissions from the local administration to take up the works immediately after the lockdown relaxations and since our pipeline alignment passes almost entirely through agricultural fields, we had to convince the local landowners for an uninterrupted workflow,” Baiju puts forth his several challenges at site and it was not just returning to work for the team as they had to strictly follow all the COVID precautions in all activities right from the accommodations to the execution areas.
To address site concerns, Baiju and team developed an effective feedback mechanism form for across levels and coordinated well with other functionaries to sort out issues, resolve matters and evolve solutions at the earliest. “All our inspection formalities and other procedures for supply and inspection clearances were shifted to the online mode in line with Company policies,” he points out. “I even introduced a unique system of sanitising and supplying groceries and vegetables to the Guest Houses,” he smiles.
Baiju attributes their success to perfect coordination and excellent teamwork. “All the team members, including our seniors, were focused in one direction to implement the pandemic control measures and, at the same time, ensure that the project made progress. We have been successful in doing so,” he says with a thumbs up.
Baiju hails from Ernakulam in God’s own country, Kerala, and is married to M S Shimmy, who is a homemaker. They have a son, B Harishankar and Baiju is overjoyed at his son’s fantastic victory as college captain at a recent football match. “Otherwise, I watch interesting media shows,” he shares, describing his pastimes.
MULTI-SKILLING TO IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY AT SITE
Rayavarapu Soma Sekhar
Senior Construction Manager (MECH), WET IC
R Soma Sekhar has had successful stints outside L&T where he has been acknowledged as a ‘Star Performer’ and those are the credentials he has brought to L&T. “I worked at L&T’s Vizag Vessel project as Assistant Construction Manager and executed different structures and shell construction,” he recalls with pride. “We executed and played a major role in various activities, and I am proud to have been part of the team that launched India’s first vessel.” Presently, he is executing the ISP-Parwati Phases I & II micro lift irrigation scheme and, as he shares, the challenges have been many. “Retaining manpower, poor availability of industrial oxygen, restrictions to enter villages to carry out work, having to strictly implement the COVID-19 SOPs and difficulty to receive consumables and material from different locations due to disruptions.”
Like true L&T‑ites, Soma Sekhar and team faced these challenges by increasing the number of workmen gangs to match daily and monthly productivity rates with proper area allocation that were continuously supervised. “Agency supervisors were trained in LMNOP+ to fix alignment of laying activities that increased productive time and by motivating the agencies, we mobilized the transportation of pipes to ensure their timely availability at the laying locations to maintain productivity,” he points out. “We multi-tasked at site to keep improving our productivity,” he smiles.
Digital tools proved to be a boon for the team like Google Smart Glass to monitor different locations, especially distant ones that enabled them to take quick decisions, and E‑Pragati to monitor progress that was continuously updated. “The working zones were divided by clubbing areas village wise, to complete networks and gangs were placed line wise to complete the entire network and avoid gaps in closings,” says Soma Sekhar. All client inspections and clearances were conducted virtually to avoid physical contact and, he adds, “MS teams has been very useful for interactions with our team members and to share documents as well.”
Their success is also the success of teamwork. “My seniors have motivated me excellently, delegated responsibility to me and guided me while my entire team has worked together with a single goal to fix daily targets and put recovery mechanisms in place in case of lapses.”
Hailing from Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Soma Sekhar is married to Madhavi, a homemaker, and they are blessed with two children, son, Phaneendra, and daughter, Praneetha. “During my free time, I love to listen to music, travel and play carrom,” he smiles. “Receiving my appointment order from L&T was a really proud moment and what I feel proud about working here is the delegation, caring and exploring new ways of working to overcome critical situations.”
RISING TO EVERY OCCASION TO DELIVER
One night on September 9th, 2015, Rajesh Gupta, then Civil Head for construction, along with his Project Manager at the 1x500 MW NPTC Vindhyanagar project, rushed to attend a SOS call from the NTPC Executive Director. “In a room filled with their seniors, we were informed that one of their water channels at Shaktinagar had collapsed and needed to be rectified immediately,” he recalls. “The ED could have gone to any of their other construction companies they were dealing with, but they trusted L&T and that is what makes me feel proud of our organization.” Needless to add, L&T delivered. Similarly, at his present site, the ISP-Parwati Phases 1 & 2 Micro Lift Irrigation project, which is his 8th with L&T, Rajesh took control of things at site during the lockdown as his Project Manager was away.
“My core competencies are in project management and site construction,” says Rajesh and he has been severely tested on both counts by the pandemic. “There were several site-based issues such as following the COVID SOPs, non-availability of skilled workmen like operators, drivers, etc., and industrial gases, restricted entry into villages and difficulty to mobilize material, plant and machinery from other locations.”
“Our project range is about 100 km involving 8 major civil structures, 575 km of MS pipeline and 6,671 km of HDPE pipeline,” shares Rajesh and his strategy to combat the challenges are to set targets, form a core team, identify resources, allocate, monitor & update, open multiple fronts, use digital tools and keep communication vibrant. For a flavour of his task, he shares one example. “Pump House#1, designed to take in water from the Indira Sagar Reversion, is only 600 m from the reservoir bank and our bottlenecks were the pandemic and the oncoming monsoon.” Though the team completed the major excavation works by April 2021, they were stuck without the required gangs for civil works like rebar, shuttering and concreting works. “It was touch and go,” says Rajesh. “We mobilized two long-standing subcontractors known to me, executed day and night and finally completed the raft by July end. Achieved milestone successfully,” he smiles with triumph mixed with relief.
“We completed 2,110 km of survey using LiDAR that we completed in just two months that would have normally taken nine months,” says Rajesh, about their various digital solutions; others being pipe tracking solutions, EIP-Pragati and BIM.
Rajesh hails from Kochas, in the district of Rohtas in Bihar and is married to Rajkumari Devi, whom he describes as the “home engineer.” They are blessed with three children, two daughters and a son, Puja, Swathi and Rahul. “My hobbies are badminton, carrom, music, and travelling,” he smiles.
A large part of the scope of works for MM Kannan, Assistant Construction Manager (Civil) at the Keonjhar Package III Water Supply Project is to create work fronts for the 227 Elevated Storage Reservoirs (ESRs). “With the local elections round the corner, it is important to create access across the entire span of the ESRs so that this key milestone shapes up with the same tempo across locations,” shares Kannan.
Once completed sometime next year, this project will change the lives of lakhs of people in about 918 villages which Kannan and team are working towards, despite overwhelming pressures. It is well accepted that every project in L&T is unique and for Kannan, the scale has become increasingly bigger. “I started my career in L&T at the Bommanalli project which was a 350-crore order. Later, I handled the Koppal Water Supply Scheme valued at 780 crore and now I am in the thick of action at a 1,200-crore project.”
The kind of prework done in this project is tremendous, mentions Kannan, “To start with, we had to prepare the way forward as most of the alignment runs along green zones needing approvals from the forest department. Perhaps, this was the most challenging phase of the project but thanks to our core expertise, we were able to make significant inroads.” At site, Kannan and team stuck to a straightforward plan. “For critical work spots, we increased manpower — a crew of 20 — with a site engineer performing the role of a project manager at that location. It was like several mini projects within a project with their own set of deliverables. At the same time, we took up tasks such as civil and pipeline works to achieve comprehensive progress.”
Kannan attributes his site’s success to the support from the Project and Planning Managers. “We have substantially value engineered to bridge the gap caused by the pandemic. Standardising the container and column heights between the bracing beam for the ESRs, implementing a 3.6 m single lift wall concrete at the IBPS & ESR to eliminate construction joints and reduce construction cycle time were some of our initiatives to accelerate progress.”
There are two memorable moments for Kannan; one was joining L&T and the other was when his son, Mrithyun, was born on August 15, 2015. “There is another bundle of joy to look forward for my wife Sivashankari and myself, as we are expecting our second child in the month of November,” he says with a big, expectant smile.
OUR STRENGTH IS OUR TEAM!
K Sarathkumar
Assistant Manager (Civil), WET IC
After joining L&T in 2014 as a GET, K Sarathkumar is presently working at his 3rd project — the Keonjhar-III WSP (BBCO- RWS III BU) after earlier stints at the Vellore Package-II project where he was Site Engineer and the Adilabad Water Supply project where was Section In-charge for the civil and pipeline works, and successfully completed the project, he stresses. At his present assignment, faced with the disruptions caused by the pandemic, his primary concerns were initially to remobilize workmen from their hometowns and allocate accommodation to the newcomers in quarantine rooms as per the Government guidelines. “Once we were clear of our immediate milestones, we quickly chalked out a plan of action and set to work,” says Sarathkumar, full of energy and involvement.
It was important for the team to analyse their scope before delegating work to the various project team members with the required resources, and monitor their progress, at frequent intervals, to check their success of achieving the milestones. “Every team at our project is unique,” says Sarathkumar, with pride and conviction. “I handle one block with 8 members in my team and all of us are equally passionate about our work and to achieve our targets. Our strength is our team,” he avers.
By allocating contractors to their respective site engineers, they were able to regularly monitor the daily plan v/s achieved progress through daily meetings and discussions. “We created separate WhatsApp groups for the civil and pipeline activities and each engineer updates photos and suggests course corrections, if any required,” he shares. He acknowledges that digitalization has been extremely helpful to the team during the COVID times with Zoom calls and meetings on MS Teams keeping the team connected and sufficiently engaged.
Hailing from Sathyamangalam in Tamil Nadu’s Erode district, Sarathkumar is delighted that he has just been engaged to his fiancée, Indumathi, an IT analyst. “My life is full of memorable moments but perhaps the most memorable moment was when I met my love after three years due to our personal reasons,” he shares with a blush. “I went from Hyderabad to Coimbatore to see her surprised reaction. She was very happy seeing me too.” His hobbies are playing games and listening to music.
Sharing another slice of life, Sarathkumar shares that as he comes from a lower middle-class family, it was necessary for him to work to improve his family’s situation. “During my final year, L&T came to my campus for recruitment,” he recalls. “600 students attended the interview, only four were selected and one was me. That was my ‘dream came true’ moment. Seven years later, I am still a proud L&T‑ite!”
SECOND TIME LUCKY, AND NOW DOING WELL
V. Vijayakumar
Assistant Construction Manager (Mechanical), WET IC
“This is my sixth project in L&T,” shares V. Vijayakumar, Assistant Construction Manager (Mechanical) at the Keonjhar Water Supply Project III. Recalling his innings, he says, “Just after completing my engineering, I tried to join L&T in 2010 with a walk-in resume but was not permitted by the security personnel at the gate as I had not done any prior registration. Later, with some good work experience, I was able to make the breakthrough within 3 years and from then on it has been an enriching journey with my Dream MNC company.”
Water infrastructure projects are always special, mentions Vijayakumar, “the joy of fulfilling the dreams of thousands of people is perhaps the greatest satisfaction that one can get,” he acknowledges, “I’m fortunate to have been associated with a slew of significant water supply and distribution projects over the last few years,” though Keonjhar has been a slightly different project with majority of the alignment running in forest zones which called for a lot of prework. “Normally, in urban and rural water schemes, the right of way issues are people centric, based on their land banks,” informs Vijayakumar. “In this case, however, we had to do a lot of sustainable groundwork in line with green norms.” Vijayakumar is happy that a series of value engineering on ground initiatives have helped him and team to steer the course. “There were two panchayats in our distribution scope located in forest areas at a height of 720 m and the challenge was in laying the network from the water treatment plant that was at a lower level all the way up. We standardised the processes by defining SOPs for critical areas ensuring that the tasks were safely done.” The next few months are crucial for Vijayakumar. “We are focussing on completing the CWRM pipelaying by December 2021 which is a tall order but considering that the way things are shaping up well, we should be able to achieve this milestone.”
Diwali, the festival of lights, brings fond memories for Vijayakumar, “My hometown, Sivakasi, is considered India’s cracker headquarters, and the sight of sparklers as part of the festivities reminds me of home. With my wife, Vinodhini, a homemaker, and daughter, Viviksha along with me at site, home away from home is also sweet.”
AT THE FOREFRONT OF TECHNOLOGY
Rahul Pal
Construction Manager (Civil), WET IC
The Cuttack Wastewater Scheme project is really an interesting story about technological breakthroughs and for Rahul Pal, an even more interesting experience of a lifetime, being associated with it. “The odds were stacked against us right from the beginning but to the world, we have shown how a composite wastewater network can be built sustainably with new-age technology.”
For Rahul and team change was the name of the game, as to start with, much of the project scope was converted from open to microtunnelling. “We adopted a mixed approach, deploying a range of systems such as specialized shoring and well point dewatering for quick progress, robotics for CCTV inspection that ultimately won the game for us,” he shares with barely concealed excitement, adding that on course, they redefined some of the processes of ground engineering works. “We proved that there are safer alternatives than blasting to break down hard rock with the Diamond Rope Cutting Method and successfully laid 800 mm dia RCC pipe at an average depth of 4.5 m with a maximum depth of 6 m across. This initiative was recognised by the Government and ‘The Hindu’ newspaper published an article on our achievement along with my interview.” His smile is as broad as the pipes they laid.
With most of the deliverables accomplished, Rahul is an extremely pleased man. “My first assignment with L&T has been challenging but very rewarding. For someone who stepped into L&T possessing significant insights in executing sewerage projects, this has been a major step up, as the system here is very efficient, project management of a high order and hopefully going forward there will be many more milestones for me to surpass,” says Rahul, ready for his next challenge.
Rahul’s family includes his wife, Rituparana Mridha who is a homemaker and daughter Riddhi Pal who are based in Berhampur, West Bengal. While at home, spending quality time with family is priority for him, during long breaks there are fond pursuits that he indulges in like driving, watching movies, playing football and of course trekking. “Reaching Kederanth Temple after a 16 km trek was a sublime feeling with the entire region surrounded by snow-capped mountains and the Alaknanda river flowing by,” he shares a lovely memory.
GAINING MOMENTUM WITH ON-FIELD IMPROVISATIONS
Kartick Chakroborty
Engineer (Civil), WET IC
Kartick Chakroborty was at the nerve centre of action at the Cuttack Wastewater project with a large part of his scope of works traversing across the city’s market areas. “We created an entry shaft to commence the micro-tunnelling works at Chowdhury bazar which was a maze of narrow by-lanes with 24/7 traffic. With the support of the traffic marshals and the local authorities, we commenced works in a secure manner causing minimum disruption.”
Acknowledging the guidance and support from his seniors, Kartick shares, “I followed a well-designed hybrid plan with activities aligned zone wise and further based on specific areas in line with the pandemic-related SOPs. The ploy was to break down the activities through weekly balance work sheets and then bifurcate the tasks based on target completion schedules.” However, it was not all smooth sailing for Kartick with issues regarding the existing underground utilities coming in the line of the alignment. “We convinced the client to make the necessary changes, that even involved rerouting the alignment depending on the criticality of the utility,” he points out.
While technology gave them the edge, a range of on-ground improvisations made work safer and quicker. “We modified an existing EX 140 excavator with a grab buck for well sinking to automate the entire process thereby reducing the cycle time from 8 to 2 hours,” he flags off one of their successes. “Likewise, systems such as specialized shoring and well point dewatering systems enabled safe execution of works in critical areas with high water table. Wherever we could step on the pedal, we deployed initiatives like ‘Dawn-to-Dusk’ and scaled up operations with multiple gangs engaged across work fronts.”
For clarity on the way forward, Kartick gives credit to the planning department. “They have been very helpful in maintaining a record of the balance of works, proactively highlighting issues and providing direction to the on-field teams.” The monthly billing process was accelerated to maintain a healthy working capital while working hours were extended to balance the inevitable loss of manhours due to the pandemic. “Ultimately, it was fusion of technology, engineering and seamless project management that delivered India’s largest wastewater project,” he shares proudly.
There have been some wonderful moments for Kartick during the pandemic. “Becoming a father was the most cherished one and not a day passes without my wife, Saheli, sharing the joy of having Sanchari, our baby girl, as our gift of life,” he sums up joyfully.
“LUCKY TO BE PART OF A COMPANY THAT MAKES THINGS THAT MAKE INDIA PROUD!”
Subhajit Ghosh
Engineer (Civil), WET IC
“It was always my dream to serve at L&T and I am living my dream,” says an enthusiastic Subhajit Ghosh, who is presently executing his first project with L&T, the Cuttack Sewerage project, one of the largest for the Waste Water BU. “I had heard about the L&T culture and now that I am a part of it, I feel proud that as an L&T‑ite, I am part of a company that make things that make India proud!”
“Just before lockdown, I had started the longest 154 m 900 mm dia micro tunnelling work,” he shares seriously. “After the lockdown it was challenging to restart work but despite workmen problems and the rainy season, we completed the work within a month, and in addition, successfully completed another two critical drives.” His face wears the look of success. “When we resumed work after the first lockdown, we had to clear our backlog as soon as possible so we worked day and night, prioritizing our work, based on safe locations and available recourses.” With the roads clear of people and traffic due to the lockdown, they made quicker progress. “First, I planned the monthly work aligned with the completion plan of the work zone, then broke it down into days to compare the DPR with the daily plan that helped us to plan our resources of materials, workmen and machinery in advance.”
Some specific safe working procedures were decided after discussions with the client and associates. “Our first challenge was to bring back workmen and make them feel safe for which I continuously followed up with the labour contractor,” Subhajit shares, while, at the same time, assuring the available workmen that they were safe and motivating them to increase productivity at site. He acknowledges the role of digitalization in their success mentioning the ViewEHS App and the Smart Glass technique to monitor site activities at various work locations.
“Our earlier project head, Altaf Hussen Sir motivated and looked after us throughout the lockdown and afterwards, our present project head Monoj Raut sir has drawn up a route plan to help us to plan and achieve maximum progress,” he says, glad for their guidance.
Hailing from Howrah in West Bengal, Subhajit is married to Piyali, a Civil Service aspirant. “As for my hobbies, I love to read, watch travel documentaries and hike in the hills. In fact, one of my most memorable moments was a trek into the Himalayas when I realized for the first time how beautiful nature can be and how it can calm all mental stress,” he says with a faraway look.
