As Project Manager of Package B, Madar to Palanpur section of the WDFC EMP‑4 project involving 800 TKM OHE and 48 PSI locations, Sathya Kumar S has a lot riding on his shoulders. “This is my first project with L&T,” and like all our lives, his too has been overtaken by COVID-19. “The first wave in 2020 hit us when we were at the stage of erecting cantilevers and other fittings at the OHE masts so material supply was an issue as most of the factories that manufacture the required fittings were either closed or operating with minimum labour. The second wave in 2021 hit us when we were in the final adjustment phase. We required 1,200 skilled OHE workmen to replace those who had left the site, so arranging and retaining labour to meet the project’s tough asking rate was challenging.”
His methodical mindset and approach are evident as he describes his various milestones. “In OHE, the first milestone is to complete OHE foundations and mast erection, then complete the wiring followed by final adjustment work and lastly, sectioning activities to charge the OHE and run the loco.” He pauses and mentions that a most memorable moment for him was to see the first goods train movement on the Madar-Marwar section. “In PSI, the first milestone is to complete civil work, then erect the structure and equipment followed by cabling and stringing leading to testing and commissioning.”
After the second COVID wave, Sathya was left with a tall task of 12,000 cantilevers and 450 TKM OHE to adjust in 7 block sections and 8 yards. With skilled workmen the issue, he divided the entire section into 3 zones, priority wise. “70% of the workforce was deputed to Zone 1 and 15% each to the other two,” he explains. “As work completed in Zone 1, the workmen were shifted to the other two zones. This way we remained focused and completed the project within the timeline following the methodology approved by the client.”
Sathya is thankful for the all-round support he has received to complete his project. First, from the client by providing Tower Wagons from adjacent Indian Railway authorities to complete post wiring activities. About his Project Director, he shares, “Whenever I asked him to mobilise labour, P&M, or for special approvals for some materials to execute work, he guided and supported me to achieve my milestones. I am thankful to L&T too for providing support in all aspects to achieve major tasks to complete 800 TKM of OHE.”
Hailing from Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district, Sathya’s wife is Sujata, a homemaker and they are blessed with a son, Rakshit. Marketing and cooking are his hobbies when he finds the time for them.
What Saroj Singh finds most endearing about working at L&T is that it is like being part of a family. “The senior management are all approachable and I feel secure working with L&T,” she says with a positivity that has rubbed off onto her work at her first project with L&T, the EMP‑4, 2x25 kV traction system, Rewari — Makarpura section of the WDFC project — Phase 1. “Being a linear job, staff and workmen gangs have to be shifted every 10 — 15 days to reduce time & cost and to improve productivity,” she explains. “Our major challenge after the lockdown was to maintain social distance between the working staffs and gangs especially while working at heights on tower wagons or high-rise platforms for which we formed separate teams for various activities to avoid mixing of gangs. That way, we were able to complete the Marwar — Palanpur section at the earliest,” she smiles triumphantly.
Delving deeper into the nature of her responsibilities, Saroj shares that work is allocated to individual team members based on the OHE adjustment work plan. “We have divided the 203 km section into multiple zones with a specific gang for each zone to accelerate work across various fronts.” Daily team reviews, close coordination with the DFCC senior management and the operating staff for block availability are helping Saroj and team to fast track their work. “We use Strip Chart to record location wise progress, keep tab on the availability of fronts for the Tower Wagon and maintain data wise progress of the staff and gangs to ensure accountability and quality.” In addition, the GPS system installed on the Tower Wagon, a scarce resource in OHE electrification adjustment work, helps them to monitor its position while working on the track and enhance productivity.
The pandemic has been a thorn in her side too and, as a team, they have had to take several preventive steps to ensure the health and safety of all. “In fact, while reviewing daily progress, I first ask people about their health,” she says, “and I always encourage the working site teams to wear masks and keep packed food and fruits with them when they are working on the track which is generally 30–40 Kms away from the guest house.”
The light of Saroj’s life is her 7‑and-a-half-year-old daughter, Unnati, and her life partner is Mayank Kumar Singh who is the Rajasthan Regional Head for Aditya Birla Mutual Fund. “I love plantation and cooking,” she smiles and shares with delight that her most memorable moment was when they were blessed with a baby girl.
As soon as the restrictions were lifted and project sites received the green signal to resume operations, the focus of many, like Niraj Kumar Nayak, at the OPGC MGR WTP project, was to quickly evolve ways and means to keep progressing. Restart did not mean that the pandemic had disappeared so Niraj’s additional responsibilities were to mobilize fresh labour and keep the personnel at site safe from infections so that work could continue without hinderances. Although at his first project with L&T, Niraj found support and direction from all quarters to succeed in his task.
“I realized that this was a battle that could not be won alone,” he says, “and therefore I involved various stakeholders and even the local government bodies in our effort.” Labour mobilization was, however, his major task, to replenish the numbers who had left for their hometowns at the beginning of the lockdowns. Niraj and team therefore looked at identifying skilled labour locally to push progress. “We convinced the village heads and leaders that it was safe for the local people to work at our site as we were strictly following all the COVID-19-related SOPs of the Odisha government.”
Another ploy to speed up work was to deploy minimum resources that reduced the chances of the infection spreading. Digital tools came in handy for Niraj and his colleagues as they were able to monitor project progress across work zones that were readily and regularly shared with the client for their approvals. Niraj is appreciative of the client’s role in this situation. “They helped to arrange for antigen testing locally and approved site progress reports digitally that went a long way to avoid delays.” Niraj is equally appreciative of his seniors and colleagues for their support and cooperation. “My seniors helped me to take decisions wherever needed and all my team members together helped me to achieve our progress on time not making me feel at any time that this is my first assignment with L&T.”
Niraj’s life partner, wife, Rashmita, is a homemaker, and they are blessed with a son, Swastik. Hailing from Kuchinada in Odisha’s Sambalpur district, Niraj spends his free time watching TV and nods smilingly that he does find time to indulge in it. He recalls a MDP training programme at LDA, Lonavala, as the best memory of his professional life.
“Caring for its people and the wonderful training programmes are reasons why I am so proud to be a L&T‑ite,” he says, with his head held high.
CATCH THEM YOUNG AND TRAIN THEM
TO BE EXPERTS
Amit Shukla
Manager (MECH), Railways SBG
Amit Shukla is very proud of the company he keeps. “Ever since I joined L&T in 2008 as a GET, the organization has put tremendous faith in me and given me challenging opportunities to grow,” he declares. Perhaps, taking a leaf out of his own book, Amit and his team at the Mumbai Metro project, his present assignment, evolved a clever plan to identify 100+ energetic growth-oriented youngsters from various CSTIs to work at their manufacturing facility. “We were establishing a sleeper casting facility for LVT (Low Vibration Technology) sleeper blocks that were being manufactured with zero slump concrete for the first time in India,” he explains. “With our technical counterparts in Switzerland unable to travel we had to make do with some digital help from them.”
After the factory was set up in Wadala, Mumbai, in Oct 2020, the team’s biggest challenge was to get skilled workforce to operate the facility. “Largely dependent on our subcontractor’s manpower, our factory operations were hampered almost daily due to shortage of labour to address which, we came up with a plan to hire CSTI trainees and train them on the job.” With continuous training, motivation and taking all the precautionary measures, the project now has 100+ such trainees operating the manufacturing facility and the factory is operating 175% of the initial planned production. Having worked wonders, the experiment is being adopted by the Railways SBG at other projects like the DelhiMeerut RRTS project factory.
“Initially, though it was risky to go ahead with inexperienced skilled workmen, with the right screening process and adequate training, they are delivering way beyond from our levels of expectation,” remarks Amit, effusively. The entire production line is continuously monitored with HD cameras installed to cover the entire factory premises. “We are also able to make several corrections in the production line to reduce cycle-time and resources,” adds Amit.
“Too many cooks, they say, spoil the broth,” remarks Amit, “and soon we realised that the same production level could be achieved with lesser manpower, hence we split the team into two, for day and night working. This arrangement not only created healthy competition between the two teams, but also ramped up the production to its highest level,” Amit smiles at the win-win situation.
Amit is already on his 6th project with L&T; one of his earlier assignments was to head the Alwar-Bandikui-Jaipur Gr. 184 (CORE) electrification project as Project Manager.
Hailing from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Amit is married to Neha, a homemaker, and they are blessed with a son, Muktansh, who’s birth has been Amit’s most cherished moment. No second guesses as to what his hobby is – it is to mentor his subordinates!
PROUD OF BEING PART OF ICONIC
L&T PROJECTS
Vaibhav Dnyaneshwar Tidke
Construction Manager (Civil), Railways SBG
Starting with his first project with L&T, the Rail Wheel Plant for the Indian Railways, at Chappara in Bihar, then the Mumbai Monorail project, followed by the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor EMP‑4 project, (Rewari-Makarpura Section), Jaipur, Rajasthan to his present assignment at the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor project, (Khurja-Pilkhani Section) LE200389, Vaibhav Tidke, has been part of several iconic L&T projects. “L&T is an esteemed organization with diverse project capabilities, and I consider myself lucky for having had the opportunity to be part of so many iconic L&T projects,” he says proudly.
“Our main challenge at my present site was to achieve the project Milestone‑1 which was financial invoice that was heavily dependent of the supply of material,” he says. “At the same time, the lack of labour was another major challenge to push progress at site.”
Since there was a delay in the supply of materials by vendors on the pretext of COVID-19, the Project team proposed a cost centre breakup with valid justification to seek Client approval. That has gone a long way to successfully claim invoice from the Client for the achievement of Project Milestone‑1, which has been in line with the guidelines issued by the Client, DFCCIL, to improve the cashflow in Contracts.
“Identifying suitable vendors and subcontractors was critical to enhance the pace of work,” remarks Vaibhav. “We also actively interfaced with the adjoining agencies to execute the work with less hindrance in execution.”
While project progress is being monitored by the team as per a weekly planned work programme, Vaibhav is appreciative of the support from his team members to achieve his objectives. “Every one of my team members is helping me to give the required details to share with the client and we are well guided by our Project Head in every aspect to complete the work,” he shares. “Meetings on MS Teams have helped a lot to improve the interface between the client and our project team. We are also using BIM 360 for design/document submissions for Client approval,” he mentions, referring to the digitalization adopted by the project team.
Hailing from Akola in Maharashtra, Vaibhav is married to Gauri, who is a homemaker, and they are blessed with a daughter, Vihana. “During my free time, I love to paint and do clay modelling,” he smiles and nods, “yes, I find time to keep my hobbies alive!”
“In this pandemic situation, L&T has stood by the employees and their families taking care and helping in all respects,” states Birendra Kumar, proud of his organization, “and that is the same care that we are showing to our people at site.” He is at his first assignment with L&T at the EMP‑4, WDFC Project and his concentration has been to drive progress during these difficult times. “Yes, we have had to face several challenges,” he nods. “First, several of our staff and workmen became COVID positive, we have had to face shortage of manpower, there have been issues of shifting material to our various sites but perhaps the most difficult has been to convince our people to move to the site.”
However, despite these challenges, Birendra and his colleagues have been able to push their project forward. “To accelerate the works across various fronts, targeting section wise, we arranged material and manpower to be shifted either in the Yard or near to the track to minimise the interference of the local administration and the public for maximum output,” he explains. Section in-charges and engineers are given their plans, allotting work timelines and a day’s progress is recorded for monitoring. “Online billing approvals and inspection of materials are two other factors that have helped us achieve our milestones in time,” he adds.
“To achieve our immediate milestone of checking the entire Rewari to Dabla (MS‑1) section, we came up with a unique idea to set up temporary labour camps near the track, arranged a BFR and connected it to the Tower Wagon to shift the workmen that has helped us achieve our OHE and PSI targets,” he says with a bright smile.
To combat the virus, Birendra and his team have taken several other preventive steps including educating the staff and workmen, setting up quarantine centres, and tying up with hospitals that have boosted the morale and gained the confidence of the people that have in turn helped them fast forward progress.
Birendra’s native place is Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh. He is married to Meera Yadav, who is a homemaker, and they are blessed with three children, Somya, Kavya and Pranjal. “My hobbies are reading and playing cricket, but I rarely find the time to pursue them,” he says with a shake of his head but immediately brightens up saying, “My most memorable moment was when I took my daughter into my lap for the first time.”
The multiple disruptions due to the pandemic have changed priorities for people at project sites and Sunil Kumar Naik at his first assignment with L&T at the OPGC MGR project, has found new responsibilities to shoulder. “Mobilization of labour along with identifying, tracing, training, and engaging local labour for specialized work like bridge work with L&T formwork and overcoming the resistance from the local public and the Sarpanches, who are empowered with Magistrate powers during pandemic, to get local workmen to site have been my major concerns,” he says, with a determined look. At the same time, he and his team members must plan, assess and coordinate for the steady and prompt delivery of construction material at site to ensure progress.
To maintain progress, a healthy workforce is an imperative and Sunil has been tasked to evolve methods to keep engineers and workmen safe at site. “I took the lead role to get permissions to set up approved quarantine centres and handle registrations on the State portals to procure e‑passes to bring migrant labour to site,” he flags off his contribution. “We also rely on local resources to meet our requirements be it in the form of local labour or local suppliers or even locally available machineries,” he adds.
He is quick to point out that digitalization is playing a huge role in improving efficiencies during these days of the pandemic. “All our client inspections are through video calls, daily progress updates through WhatsApp and with real time information available we are able to monitor and review planned v/s achieved productivity and improve progress.” Even in the case of the workforce, Sunil and team are finding it easier to maintain fitness records, refer to joining dates and ascertain periods of quarantine. “This has helped us to take necessary actions to maintain progress. Even our training and project review meetings are through Microsoft Teams.”
Hailing from Brajranagar in Odisha, Sunil’s life partner, Mrs Silka Sahoo, is a homemaker and they are blessed with a daughter, Sanvi. “I like to listen to music and travel,” shares Sunil, with a smile, “that gives me freedom from my routine work, refreshes me and releases my stress.” He recalls an EDP training programme at LDA, Lonavala, as one of his most cherished memories.
Many aspects of L&T impresses Sunil. “The quality in works, improved learning & training programmes, transparency at the workplace, friendly employees and the scope for overall development,” he signs off with a flourish.
THE MAJOR CHALLENGE WAS TO REVIVE STALLED OPERATIONS
Tejesh Karampudi
Assistant Manager (ELEC) — Railways SBG
“Inertia was our greatest challenge post the relaxation of the pandemic restrictions,” points out Tejesh Karampudi sagely, executing his first project for L&T, the Rewari-Makarpura section, EMP‑4 WDFC project. “All our activities and processes, once in full swing, decelerated and stayed put for some time due to the restrictions and it was extremely difficult to restart action and regain momentum at site, at the vendors’ premises and across the entire value chain.” Tejesh’s portfolio is wide and varied involving scheduling, OHE material estimation cum management and digital.
Digital is what seems closest to his heart for he eagerly holds forth about his various digital interventions at site. “We started adopting most of our digital solutions by FY20,” he begins, “like Asset Insights, through which we do vendor debiting for diesel consumption (Actual vs Digital) on a recurring basis, PREPS, in which the checklists are fully digital and WISA, through which we have cumulatively on-boarded 5,500+ workmen. Thanks to WISA, the screening process is much simpler now,” he smiles. His biggest triumph has been the development of a customized version of e‑BOM. “It has helped us raise an invoice of INR 30 Crores on the client and we can now accurately and quickly estimate OHE material.”
Cantilever material receipt and production precedes Contact & Catenary Wiring in a Railway OHE project and for the past year, another of Tejesh’s responsibilities has been to manage cantilever production and right placement. “As work momentum has been at its peak during this period, management of material delivery, timely production and dispatch were the key parameters to determine our success and our ‘First Time Right’ principle, implemented both in letter and spirit, have helped to streamline production processes and overcome tube ength issues that have increased productivity and maintained the quality of the cantilever.” Early flagging mechanisms and timely escalations have solved supply chain disruptions too.
On a personal note, Tejesh feels that at times he gets too involved in details and gets lost in the labyrinth. He is thankful to his Project Director, Sasisekar Subramanian, for showing him a new perspective and leading him out of it. He is equally appreciative of the support he used to receive from Ashish Sir (former Head — Planning) and presently from Saurabh Sir (incumbent Head — Planning). About the latter he adds, “He is like a brother to me, and I love to work with him!”
Born in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district, Tejesh was brought up in a small seaside town of Chirala. Still single, he indulges in reading and coding. He cherishes the experience of having stayed at four different places due to the nature of his job and met different people. He signs off about L&T saying, “In my company’s prosperity lies my country’s prosperity wherein lies my happiness!”
“I LOVE THE FREEDOM TO PERFORM!”
He is at his first project with L&T at the OPGC MGR Railways project, but Pavan Didel is loving the freedom the company gives him to carry out his responsibilities. “I have the liberty to look at all possible ways, adopt any approach to complete the work and that is why I am proud to be a L&T‑ite,” he says with complete conviction. It is also certainly the reason why Pavan and his colleagues at their project have been successfully completing their milestones despite huge challenges.
“Our main object after the lockdowns was to construct the Gabion Wall in areas that were prone to soil failure and therefore, we had to first stabilize the rock slopes,” he explains, though they were faced with several issues of lack of labour, time bound construction to be completed before the monsoon, receipt of material from other states and working in a confined space. “We started with activities that could be completed quickly with the available resources be it rock breaking, PCC laying or arranging boulders of the required shape & size. We were ready with all the preliminary work completed before receiving the material from our vendors that helped us to achieve our milestones in time.”
Micro-planning is what helps in these situations and as Pavan shares, they evolved a system of giving responsibility and taking daily progress reports. “We digitally maintain daily progress reports and plans for the next 3 and 7 days, making course corrections wherever required. This way we are able to achieve the targets set for the first month and a half.” With digital tools, they monitor workmen attendance, quickly identifying absentees who are immediately contacted to ascertain their reason for absence. “Since mobilization was tough, we decided to complete our tasks with the available local labour,” he says, “for which we divided our manpower into subgroups with each group trained for the first two days to get a quality product. New workmen were made to mingle with the earlier groups to maintain quality.”
Apart from the freedom to perform, Pavan is equally appreciative of the guidance and backing of his seniors which is why, he says, the project team has been brilliant in achieving the set targets. “Our Project Manager Sir gave approvals for additional measures due to the pandemic and our team member, Naidu sir is always there to guide us.”
Still single, Pavan’s father is a farmer and mother, a homemaker. He has several hobbies like travelling, reading, playing cricket & badminton but, “time spent with the family is always on top any time I look for memorable moments,” he says with a smile.
DIGITALIZATION HELPS TO KEEP THE
BALL ROLLING
Anirban Chatterjee
Asst. Construction Manager (ELEC) — Railways SBG
For young Anirban Chatterjee, working at the OPGC MGR WTP Project, his first with L&T, digitalization has been a huge help for him and his project team in many ways to overcome the challenges posed by the pandemic and push progress. “Our digital platform has sorted out a major chunk of our threats.” He sounds both relieved and happy. “It has helped me greatly to monitor project progress across multiple work zones and, most importantly, get timely approvals for drawings and other matters from our client and the State Government agencies to avoid delays especially since they were reluctant to visit our site regularly.”
Not surprisingly, the pandemic and its widespread impact is the recurring theme of our conversation. “Prior to getting into detailed works at our site, we held group discussions with our seniors and workmen of all cadre to put down the notable guidelines to be followed and how to face and solve pandemic-related challenges as and when they arose,” he informs.
The team worked hard to spread awareness and as Anirban mentions, the EHS team played a lead role to ensure that the COVID SOPs were strictly followed. “The news of cases increasing and lack of treatment centres across the country were creating panic but thanks to our strong team spirit we succeeded to keep things under control and achieve our milestones,” His tone is of resoluteness. Anirban is thankful to his seniors for their continuous support. “They have supported me throughout. I can call them at any time and receive a proactive response that has helped me a lot to achieve my targets,” he says with gratitude.
The team had two other headaches: to rapidly mobilize specialized and skilled manpower and ensure steady supply of materials from various vendors. “We did minute-level planning to mobilize labour as the quarantine rules had to be strictly followed and continued the process after they were inducted with thermal screenings and toolbox talks about the precautions to be taken to stay safe.”
Hailing from Burdwan in West Bengal, Anirban is still seeking his life partner but for the moment fills his free time watching web series. “One of my training programmes at LDA, Lonavala was memorable,” he smiles. “Another great moment was when I saw one of our oxygen generators being installed at a major hospital when I was in that district for my vaccination. My family and I feel proud that we, as a company, are standing with the nation in this time of crisis.”