HEAVY CIVIL IC FINDS THE KEY TO OPEN THE LOCKDOWN!

No lockdown during the lockdown at the prestigious Mumbai Coastal Road project

On 21st May the Mumbai Costal Road Project (MCRP), Package 1 achieved a peak supply of reclamation fill (graded crushed rock) of over 900 trips (i.e. in excess of 26,600 MT) in 24 hours made possible by the concerted and coordinated efforts of Project Director, Rakesh Singh Sisodia, Mumbai Cluster Head, I Chandran and Construction Manager, Suhas Deshpande and team who lined up supplies of filling material from as many as seven sub-contractors. “This was double the quantum of deliveries from 400-500 trips/day over the past week,” says a beaming Rakesh. “We sourced the filling material from crushers at quarry sites based in Kundewahal, CIDCO airport in Raigad district, some 50-60 kms away from site and to achieve that during the lockdown was great!”

Rakesh’s project site has continued to operate even during the lockdown managing the ongoing pre monsoon works under ‘Essential Services’ for the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) carrying out critical protection of 1,100 m of the constructed seawall, expanding its reclamation footprint by 4 hectares and bringing a total of 3 lakh MT of fill material during this period.

Over at the MCRP – Package 4, Project Director, Sandeep Singh and team have also been involved with pre-monsoon works. “We acted prudently by preempting the lockdown to form a task force and assign specific roles and responsibilities to keep our workforce of 350 workmen and 70 staff safe,” he informs. The going, however, has not been easy by any stretch of imagination according to Assistant Manager IR & Administration Package – 4, Jai Kumar Sharma. “Our client informed us to proceed with the monsoon protection work and we had to quickly make available the required number of workmen for the works, arrange for their food, provide adequate PPEs, support staff movement from residence to site and provide for all the necessary facilities to perform work at site. With so many restrictions, so many precautions to be taken and without adequate support, it has been tough.”

K Hari Narayan, Senior Manager – Accounts & Administration adds that “Remobilisation after the first few days of lockdown was difficult as lots of administrative issues cropped up and the day to day affairs were more difficult to manage due to lack of manpower. Moreover, since Mumbai was a hot zone and continues to be so, we had to be doubly careful with our safety norms so that the residents in the vicinity did not create issues.” All the necessary permissions from authorities like the local police, traffic police, Collectors of Suburbs from where quarries were supplying material were sought and procured. The team was careful that their actions would not lead to any contractual or legal complications later for the organization. For unhampered movement and transportation of material, individual passes were issued to all the staff and workmen along with those for vehicles that would be engaged at site. All those working at site were COVID-19 tested and the workmen who were not staying in camps like operators, who could be potential ‘carriers’ were accommodated at the site itself.

For a majority of the staff, the Work From Home regime was completely new. “51% were either Engineers or from the Supervisory cadre who are better tuned to site-based works,” Sanjay points out, “while about 68% of our staff were either bachelors or forced bachelors, staying away from their families, terribly worried about their families back home and, in some cases, under huge family pressure to return to their homes considering the alarming situation in Mumbai.”

With their work cut out for them, Sanjay and his team first targeted the staff: to retain and motivate them to keep performing for which a 3-Tier employee connect programme was adopted. HR connected with them formally and informally while the Project Director and Section Heads interacted almost daily. Several online programs were conducted like singing, poster and painting competitions for the employees and their families; they were encouraged to participate in various online training programs, online quiz competitions and one-on-one counselling was available for those who wanted help.

“With so much false and fake information floating around, we had to ensure that our 3,000 workmen were given correct and authentic information across all the 11 labour camps,” says Sanjay. This was critical for them to remain mentally balanced. The team created WhatsApp groups with all the workmen representatives to create awareness, share information, address problems and concerns. Each workman was mapped to an employee through their representative, who was mandated to converse with the workman at least twice a day. Although there were a few and sporadic incidents overall, they remained under control. The team ensured that they were paid on time, medically looked after, continuously counselled and adequate facilities prepared for quarantining.

Finally, to carry out the essential premonsoon works and resume operations, a Standard Operating Procedure was prepared defining the new way of working with a task force set up drawn from various sections / disciplines to examine various aspects of the project and identify the changes required which were then subsequently shared with the client and their consent obtained.

Apart from himself and Project Director, Dr Yunkmook Na, Sanjay mentions his other comrades-in-arms in this fight – Yunus H Aziz, A M Patrawala, Pruthvi, Sidharth, Umesh Tiwari, Pabitra Parida, Ramesh, Pravin Sawant, Dr Ravindra Jain, Subhash Chandra and Rajendra.

Despites all these impediments, Srinath and team have been holding out to keep their work force engaged at site and primed to restart work as soon as relaxations are announced. Theirs has been a triumph of teamwork and Srinath mentions a few of his colleagues who have been pulling their weight during these tough times: Rajesh Singh, Head Administration supported by a set of L&T & JV staff – Rajesh, Negi, Dilip Behera, Anuranjan; Paras Abhay Singh and Bibin Arakkal from Safety, Ajay Nath from the HR department and Saurabh Mishra from operations.

Resuming operations with a bang!

When Mumbai went into lockdown, the Mumbai Metro project team at Package 07 with Project Director, H Jayarama (HJ) at the helm ensured that the site was kept primed for a quick resumption of operations by maintaining the station box and tunnels to prevent mosquitos from breeding and continuously dewatered to prevent water stagnation. The moment they received the green signal, the project restarted work on 7th May by successfully completing the casting of its final roof slab pour (Concrete Quantity 330 cum) at the MIDC station under the guidance of A H Khan (Task Force Leader Mumbai Metro Project UGC01 and UGC07) and HJ. “The completion of the roof slab is another feather in the team’s cap, becoming the first station in the entire Mumbai Metro Line 3 to complete the structure works of the station box,” HJ proudly shares. Prior to achieving this feat, the MIDC station had achieved some remarkable milestones such as being the first station to complete piling, excavation, and base slab in the entire Mumbai Metro Line 3.

Their neighbours at Package 1 have maintained close contact with the Employer adhering to their guidelines and priorities and with robust documentation and meticulous work methods, have gained the customer’s trust and confidence, while always safeguarding the contractual interests of L&T STEC JV. “This tightrope walk has been calibrated at every step by guidance from HQ and TFL,” notes Project Director, Aloke Dey, “through detailed discussions among the core group members. The project teams led by construction heads Palwinder Singh, Zamshed Ali and Nilesh Jain have demonstrated leadership while Michael Sanderson and Mohsin Anwer have kept safety orientation top priority,” he adds.

The Hydro Technical Structures Package of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project – Phase II of the Ports & Harbours BU, under the leadership of Project Head, Jayaprakash Tentu, resumed operations too on 25th April after receiving permissions from the District/local authorities, with the client’s help reflecting another huge step towards return to normalcy. A delighted client, NPCIL, appreciated the team’s effort via email: “I wish to appreciate and congratulate M/s L&T, HTS team for the successful completion of 2700 cum of 50UPX, with strict compliance to COVID-19 Govt. guidelines. The systematic efforts put in by the entire team, right from arranging manpower for production and transportation of concrete and pouring and finishing of concrete at site with limited resource and COVID-19 restriction is highly appreciable. Such teamwork will definitely help to overcome the lost time due to COVID-19.”

Project Manager, Vivek Maruti Pai’s Bangalore Metro team resumed operations on 25th April to successfully complete the first station concreting of 910 cum of M35 Grade concrete, a prerequisite to commence TBM launching activities thanks to the coordinated efforts of different departments with construction team lead by DPM, Rajuchambanna V Y & Station Manager, P Sateesh Babu, Quality team lead by Mrs. Nandita C and the P&M team lead by K K Nayak. “The pour started as planned on the evening of 21st May,” informs Vivek, “and continued till late night of 22nd May. Local traffic and authorities were effectively managed by Admin and IR team, ensuring 160 smooth trips for the transit mixers.”

Without doubt, COVID-19 has set us back a long way and we have to work doubly hard to try and make up for lost ground. Even as things limp back to normal in certain pockets, we are going to be faced with a new normal and we need to both appreciate and understand that things may never be the same again. It calls for alacrity, quick thinking, speedy adjustments, always keeping in mind that even our clients are part of this new normal and their way of operating will also see significant changes. These are going to be testing times but as they always say when the going gets tough, the tough get going and that is what L&T have always proven!