ALWAYS PREPARED FOR THE UNEXPECTED!

How EHS Managers at MMH are coping with COVID-19

As the pandemic rages across the world, it has become fashionable to call these ‘unprecedented times.’ Although the description is spot on, EHS Managers however are dreading the term as it presupposes several unforeseen and hitherto unencountered risks for which EHS teams must be ever prepared to address. “While the whole situation is novel and we would have taken care of all the big issues, sometimes it is the smaller ones that can throw everything out of gear,” remarks K N Sen (KNS), Head – EHS, MMH SBG. “At the best of times, the pressure on EHS teams is high, but during these days of COVID-19, it is critical, and our speed of reaction has had to be far quicker than normal.”

Thinking on your feet

As KNS mentioned, it is critical for site management to be vigilant of novel issues like the ones that the Mansourah Massarah Gold Project (MMGP) team faced situated within the Central Arabian Gold Region in the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia. With social distancing emerging as one of the most effective weapons against the virus, the team suddenly realized that the accommodation housing some 700 workmen had to be completely rearranged immediately. “As soon as realization dawned, we started to act,” says Project Director, Hare Ram, “and since this was the first time all of us were doing it, we were learning and course-correcting as we went along.” Controlling the entry of people into the site was deterred by a huge 38-km perimeter. “We addressed this issue by establishing an outpost about 5 km from the site,” informs, Assistant Manager – EHS, Rahul Mohan “to adequately screen people before they entered our site.”

Another vital weapon to combat the virus is communication, both upward and downward and sites that have kept their channels of communication open and well-oiled have fared better than others. With the Saudi Arabian authorities issuing several instructions, advisories, and strictures, it was essential for the team to deal with them and the Saudi officials, especially the medical staff. “Most of them did not speak English or Hindi which initially put us in a spot,” Rahul says with a tight smile, “but we overcame that problem by quickly appointing English-speaking PRO and GRO.”

Overcoming the challenge of remoteness

“It was such a paradoxical situation,” observes KNS, “while on one hand, we were striving to maintain social distancing, on the other, physical distance was throwing up several challenges for many of our sites.” While the MMGP team had to contend being 500+ km from the capital city, Riyadh, and 200+ km from the nearest town of Taif from where their supplies came, the Khargone Thermal Power project was facing a similar issue of isolation being far away from civilization as Assistant Manager – EHS, S P Tamilarasu explains. “We were suddenly hit by several safety issues. The first was that since our site was far away from both Indore (100 km) and the district town of Khargone (60 km), getting essentials like food, medicines and PPEs was very difficult. When the lockdown was announced, we had about 950 workmen stranded at our labour colony; all of them were migrants from various states mostly Bihar, UP, Jharkhand, Orissa, partly from MP and to keep them calm was a huge task.” Another issue for Project Manager, Mukesh Kumar, Tamilarasu and team was that the employees were accommodated at Sanawad some 45 Km from site due to the lack of proper facilities at Selda, which was tantamount to opening a new front to their battle. “It was a Herculean task involving multi-tasking and ensuring that all our bases were covered,” admits Mukesh, “but the team came together and delivered,” his pride in his team obvious.

Keeping huge gangs safe

Sites across L&T Construction with large gangs have had to evolve strategies on a war-footing to tackle the challenge of keeping large workforces safe like the site team at the JSW, Dolvi site that had a workforce of 8,000, spread across various camps. “The first task was to get the workmen into the right mindset,” remarks KNS. “To impress upon them that this was a novel virus that warranted novel ways to fight it.” The primary task for EHS Manager – Satish Chandra Yadav – and team was to prevent the workmen from straying outside the safety of their camps. “Not only did we provide all their essentials inside the camp,” points out Assistant Manager – IR, Purushottam Sawant, “but we even arranged for money withdrawal and transfer facilities with an ATM set up.” Satish cleverly used the workmen to further his EHS mandate by empowering them to blow the whistle on others who were not toeing the safety line. “It has worked wonders,” smiles a satisfied Satish, “and it is a wonderful best practice to follow going forward.”

Returning to site 

“All our efforts of forming Emergency Response Teams, assigning clear roles and responsibilities and keeping track of developments were all focused to one end: be ready to resume operations as soon as the lockdown was relaxed,” says Project Director – JSW, Dolvi, Bhanu Pratap Singh, with a purposeful set to his eyes. “Very early in the piece, we drew up an exhaustive list of SOPs,” informs KNS, “but the critical part was to meticulously follow them across sites for which there were frequent reviews and constant follow up. We also put in place a robust procedure to thoroughly check and escort to ensure limited exposure apart from thorough sanitization and social distancing.”

Their checklist included signing of self-declaration forms, thermal checking of body temperature, ready supply of PPEs, installation of hand sanitization points, personal hygiene precautions, awareness training for workmen, re-drawing of workplace and common area layouts to ensure social distancing, reorganization of working hours, access control, plan for proper transportation, visitor management, regular disinfecting, health surveillance, protection of vulnerable workmen and immediate steps to treat symptomatic cases.

Several other initiatives were adopted by MMH teams to reaffirm their commitment to ensure a safe working environment before resuming operations at site. “The first step was to form a team of senior staff from various departments,” shares KNS, “that conducted multiple walkthroughs around sites to verify the condition of the workplaces based on which reports were submitted to the site leadership that helped them to declare ‘GO’ and ‘NO GO’ areas to ensure a safe working environment for our workmen.” Another major initiative was to reverify the skill levels of the workforce who had not practised their respective skills during the lockdown which helped the site team to determine the vulnerable workforce and re-train them on certain skills.

“The important thing was to remain committed to our efforts without any let up,” sums up KNS, “and the result is all there for us to see. Most of our sites have resumed operations safely and our effort is to keep our safety track record intact,” he concludes confidently.