RREC PROJECTS ON THE HIGH ROAD
TO COMPLETION

“Our initial strategy was to maintain a healthy cash for our project,” remarks Kamal, “and work was taken up accordingly in areas where invoicing was favorable to us without hampering the overall project schedule. At the same time, we never lost sight of customer collections from day one, which is why we have been able to always maintain a positive cash flow and a negative working capital throughout the project lifecycle.” Kamal looks understandably proud of his team’s achievement. Smart procurement planning and order finalization for special items like shutters for precast items, prestressing materials, expansion joints, bridge bearings, and other critical items went a long way to reduce lag in execution and maintain efficiencies.

MAINTAINING HIGH STANDARDS OF SAFETY & QUALITY

The project features 107 structures, and being a greenfield project, most of these structures are above ground level involving working at heights. “We had to erect 1,340 precast girders at more than 20 m heights,” points out EHS In-charge Guru Prasad, “all of which was carried out taking the utmost care with specially identified workmen who were tested and trained before being allowed to work at such heights.”

Working next to ‘live’ traffic is a perennial hazard for road projects, and the team had to execute two interchange crossings over the existing NH8 (Delhi–Mumbai corridor) and NE1 (Ahmedabad–Vadodara Expressway) beside busy traffic. “Traffic management was a challenge,” says Guru, “but our EHS team worked in coordination with the NHAI to make all safety arrangements in accordance with IRC provisions, deploying round the-clock safety vigilantes at these interchanges. We have completed these sections with zero accidents,” declares a pleased Guru. Other EHS best practices followed at site include EHS walkdowns, awareness programmes on various works, daily pep
talks, and more. 

Executing concrete pavements demands precision, as any lapses beginning with production to laying can have an adverse impact on product quality. “We ensured efficient P&M to produce the PQC mix,” remarks P&M In-charge Prakash Raghunath Pawar, “but the major challenges arose while laying in a continuous flow such as variations in the temperature of mix, the transportation of mix, etc.” Due to the restriction of paving width, the team had to pave the 4-lane stretch in two sequences, which could have affected its ride quality. Quality In-charge Verddhman Verma picks up the story. “To overcome these issues, we planned to pave the PQC mostly during the night and implemented the Fixed Side Shutter during the first sequence when laying the PQC to level the edge with the joint, and it proved successful,” he smiles. “We had a dedicated QA/QC team for the night to check and approve before commencement of execution.”

DIGITALIZATION DRIVES EFFICIENCY

The Asset Insight digital solution monitors asset utilization while sensors fitted to all critical machines monitor fuel level differences and the use of RTR for each activity by site engineers.

PEOPLE MATTER

“Apart from maintaining round-theclock operations at site, we invited suggestions from the execution team and acted on them to improve execution speed, switching execution staff according to the specific needs where special focus was required,” informs Kamal. Manpower management was a critical task for the team as the labor force required for such a voluminous project is huge. ‘Target-based incentives’ and the rigor of mobilization by the labor agencies have been holding the project in good stead.

SIGNIFICANT MILESTONES ACHIEVED

Despite delays in land availability, the team went ahead with the work, planning to achieve their milestones as planned. “We have achieved all our three crucial milestones within the due dates and have applied for PCOD even before the schedule completion,” shares a proud Kamal. Another feather in the project’s cap is the successful completion of an ROB in all respects over one of the busiest routes, the Delhi–Mumbai route of Western Railway, substantially ahead of the date of completion. Verddhman proudly adds that his project won the Quality Trophy for 2021.

EDFC CP 303: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN TO COMPLETION

Project Manager Vikram Kohli’s EDFC CP 303 project is a part of the 1,839 km new Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor railway line between Ludhiana, Punjab, to Dankuni, West Bengal. His focus is on a 225 km route involving constructing bridges and formation works from chainage 7+820 to 187+0.50, covering 6 districts of Uttar Pradesh: Khurja, Bulandshahr, Hapur, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, and Saharanpur. The project has survived the COVID waves and a host of other rail blocks, and as Vikram says, “We were supposed to have completed this project in a record timeline of just 40 months; however, several challenges derailed our progress, but we are into our final push to complete by June 2022.”

In Vikram’s defence, it must be noted that the project runs through one of the most difficult terrains with a cross drainage structure every 300 m and canals running through, all along the alignment. It involves a huge quantum of earthwork and concrete, the execution of which, especially earthwork, is difficult due to agricultural richness all along the alignment.

Facing and overcoming these impediments, Vikram’s team has completed 80% of physical work. In theirs pursuit of closure, the project team has achieved some significant value engineering, be it dumping the secondary Ballast supplied directly from the crusher through Bobbyn Hoppers, saving substantial rehandling, or eliminating 21 km of Yard Drain between the existing and future Loop Lines, saving substantially on time and cost.