TI IC STAYS ALIGNED AND IN HIGH GEAR DESPITE THE LOCKDOWN!

As the country went into a lockdown, the team at the Ghoshpukur-Salsalabari Road project, led by Project Manager, Niloy Mukherjee, was not deterred from delivering an invoice commitment linked to the completion of a critical deck slab at Teesta. Marshalling his able troops skilfully, Niloy ensured the operation of batching plants, transit mixers, boom placers and other necessary machines to complete the deck slab to ensure billing for his project and earn brownie points from the client as well.

Overcoming roadblocks

At the Baharagora-Singhara Road project, Project Manager, Prantik Guha Roy, and team were putting in their best efforts to continue some deep piling work and excavation during the lockdown despite several challenges. “Our project is in a remote location and the lockdown immediately cut off our connectivity with Kolkata, the primary source for our running spare parts,” he points out. Prantik’s alignment crosses two borders, viz; West Bengal-Jharkhand and Odisha-Jharkhand and with the state police sealing all borders, all movement of men and machinery came to a halt that proved to be another roadblock for the team. “We faced a lack of skilled manpower as most of our workmen from the adjacent districts could not travel to site owing to the lockdown. Even maintaining a minimum manpower was becoming a challenge.”

Idling P&M incurring hefty hire charges was yet another challenge – a typical white elephant scenario.
R Ramachandran, Senior Manager – P&M picks up the story. “We had hired an external pile at a monthly hiring charge of INR 16 lakhs but were finding it difficult to operate it both because of the lack of skilled manpower and the lack of spares.”

Workmen involved in rebar works maintaining social distancing

They also had a couple of wheel loaders in commission though idling due to lack of spares. “The situation demanded some quick thinking,” remarks Assistant Manager – Accounts, Vijay Nand Choudhary, for whom the hiring charges of the rig were causing sleepless nights. “We swung into action, took the necessary permissions from the border police which was a challenge in itself, mobilised some skilled manpower and executed some remarkable work which was well appreciated by client,” shares a relieved Vijay. For Ramachandran, there was more trouble in store as the rig cracked due to the hard rock strata but still, they were able to take this in their stride and deliver! Prantik heaps praise on his P&M staff, “who rose to the occasion to keep the job going despite so many hurdles and thanks to the active support of Sambhu Prasad, Subhash Barel and Saddam who operated the batching plant, paver and WMM plants.”

Early one morning, P&M Head, M K Pradhan (MKP) was jolted awake that his 40-ton gantry at the Mumbai Nagpur Expressway project (MNEP) had derailed. He had no crane or equipment support at his disposal. Along with his Project Manager, Rangoli Srinivas’s support, MKP evolved a plan to retrieve the situation. “All the necessary engineering arrangements were made using wooden plank supports and hydraulic jacks that were designed and deployed. Despite the lockdown, we put together a team that worked continuously for 36 hours to ensure that the gantry was restored on rails without any damage.” MKP is grateful for the significant support from the site P&M personnel notably from Sanjay Verma, G Soumen, S N Yadav and Arindam Gogoi.

Reaching across distances

Road and railway projects are spread across hundreds of kms that created a unique problem for the leadership and project teams during the lockdown. Without warning thousands of employees and workmen were stranded along alignments with no way to either return to base or leave for their hometowns. There was also the issue of reaching provisions, rations, medicines, PPEs, and the like to those stranded. Senior Engineer – Civil, Pramay Pratap Singh, in charge of Overhead Equipment (OHE) works at the CP-204 Package (EDFC Phase 2) Electrification of Mughal Sarai to New Bhaupur Section project, articulates the problem. “Our project stretches over 417 kms and workmen were stranded at different locations along the stretch. When they realized their situation, they began to panic. With no execution work, we had to quickly plan ways and means to keep our staff and workmen calm, busy and engaged.” Foremost for Project Director, Anud Koul, PM-OHE, Manoj Kumar Mohanty, Manager – Safety, Subash Chandra Sethy, Pramay and the project team was to procure vehicle passes that would allow key staff to traverse the entire alignment. “We were able to get special permissions from the District Magistrate for our conveyance vehicles which enabled staff movement to reach our stranded colleagues,” says Anud with relief writ large on his face.

The Admin and IR teams at the MNEP ensured the health and safety of nearly 1500 workmen and 220 employees led by Satish Koti in Camp-1 and B. Kishore Kumar in Camp-2 guided by Vikranth Joshi, Rajasekhar, PV Santhosh Kumar and Girish Nandhyal. The Aurangabad Karodi Road project (KARP) team had to safeguard about 89 employees, 210 departmental workmen and 545 contract workmen with a team led by Project Manager, Randhi Surya Rao, EHS, Sarju Nadan Patra, IR Manager, Yugal Kishore Gupta and Site In charges – Bharat Singh and Pankaj Kale. “We deployed a micro monitoring plan,” informs Surya Rao. “dividing all the workmen into groups of 25 each with a mentor (respective engineer) appointed for each group whose responsibility was to take care of his group and keep me informed of developments on a regular basis.”

With COVID Action Teams (CATs) leading the charge, WhatsApp groups kept the various coordinators and the TI IC HQ connected enabling them to monitor the sites real time and always remain connected to exchange information, issues, solutions. Working almost round the clock, the CATs ensured the spread of awareness about the virus, instilled hygienic practices, conducted medical checks at all labour camps including remote localities. Although getting doctors to some locations was a challenge, it was managed and coordinated through various Government teams.

Senior Manager – Accounts, Dilip Choubey at the Veer to Bhogaon Khurd Road project (VBRP) stationed at Mahad in Maharashtra has a harrowing tale to narrate. “One of our sub-contractor’s workman took ill and was admitted to Mumbai’s KEM Hospital. Doctors confirmed that he was COVID negative but unfortunately, he succumbed to asthmatic pneumonia.” Despite the lockdown, Dilip and Anil Kumar Sharma (Admin & IR) travelled to Mumbai to complete the formalities including cremation rites. “Returning to site with the ‘asthi’ of the deceased workman proved to be an ordeal as we were questioned at every check post, at times detained by the police without much food and water,” laments Dilip. More trouble followed as a fake video of a patient with shortness of breath started circulating in Mahad claiming that a L&T workman was COVID-19 positive. “We received several calls from local police stations, SDM, sarpanches and people inquiring about the video and the next day, they started creating a nuisance by not allowing our security, labour and RSW workmen to remain in our office, camp and labour colony. We had to approach the District Magistrate and the SDM to sort out the matter and convince the authorities, the local reporters and the villagers,” says Dilip wiping his brow.

Learning and development lead from the front

“With work halted at project sites, in essence, time was liberated for employee training and development needs,” mentions Poonam Chandok, Head – HR, TI IC, “so we decided to utilize the available man-hours of the employees to enhance their capabilities and keep them engaged and motivated. We were facing an absolutely new situation that we had never faced before so we had to do some quick blue sky thinking,” she smiles. Within 7 days of the announcement of the lockdown, Poonam and her team launched a Virtual Training Calendar. “The response was so overwhelming from the employees that nominations were being filled within a few minutes of releasing the session schedules during the first week,” remarks Poonam. To enhance the reach of training to more employees, the frequency of the sessions was increased, and new topics introduced in the subsequent weeks.

“We tapped into our 200 internal trainers asking them to quickly develop short modules,” shares Vandana Kaushik, Senior DGM – Human Resources, TI IC. “We engaged external subject matter experts to deliver sessions on QMC & Plant & Machinery functions.” In the period from 30th March to 30th April, 122 online sessions were conducted covering 5,486 participants that constituted about 28% of TI IC’s workforce. Rapl saw a 75% increase in usage with 4,000+ TI IC employees active on the platform.