A VETERAN LEADS THE ACTION
Yatin Surendra Dave,
DGM (Civil), RREC
He is a veteran with over three decades of experience in construction but Yatin Dave will be the first to admit that he has never faced the challenges that COVID-19 has thrown up. Having spent 13 of his working years with L&T across some challenging road projects including the Unnao – Lucknow Expressway, Beawar Pali Pindwara, Ahmedabad – Mallya and Vadodara – Bharuch, Yatin is presently with the CP 303 Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor project at Meerut in UP. “After the lockdown was relaxed, our focus was to scale up productivity to pre-COVID levels which required massive coordinated day-to-day efforts between our staff and workmen,” he says, rubbing his hands as if almost warming up to share about a favourite subject.
It was not easy as Yatin and his team had to resolve several problems. “We ensured utilisation of machineries, resolved issues with both the local farmers and with the mining department and rigorously implemented COVID-19 SOPs before start of work every day.” Organizing skilled workmen and operators was another tough task because after identifying them, Yatin had to work hard and diligently to convince them and their families that it was safe for them to work. “Retaining them is equally important and we have been continuously encouraging them and doing everything to make them feel at home.” He smiles and adds, “We regularly monitored the achieved data, reviewed them daily which has been a major reason for our success.”
Yatin is thankful to his seniors at site, especially his Project Manager, Vikram Kohli, for their directions, advice, and guidance during these testing times. “All the COVID SOPs were digitally recorded, we digitally tracked our equipment for their productivity and used apps like PREP,” he says, sharing the benefits of digitalization at site.
Yatin is a very settled and satisfied employee because some of his most cherished moments are when he joined L&T and completed some of the projects he has been involved with. When quizzed about what makes him proud of being an L&T-ite, he responds, “I can take decisions within my scope of work, review and scale them up, I get great pleasure from my work and am proud of my higher achievements at the end of each day!”
IT IS GREAT TO PRACTISE YOGA DURING THESE TIMES
Mahendra Kumar Dwivedi
Senior Manager (Stores), RREC
At a time when the entire world is in turmoil trying to find a way to combat COVID-19, it is great for people to practise yoga for calmness of mind and a healthy body. Mahendra Dwivedi’s hobby is to practice yoga by which he has found better ways and means to face these testing times. A 27-year-old veteran at L&T having been associated with a wide range of TI IC projects including the Khalifa Interchange project in UAE, ADAC, Mafarat Road Project, Mirdif City Centre Interchange, Jebel Ali and several other projects in India, he is presently managing stores at the Mumbai Vadodara Expressway project.
True to his role, Mahendra’s major concern when the pandemic started to spread resulting in the country going into a lockdown was the non-availability of transport for the supply of essential material. “All our vendor activities were closed and since the site urgently required essential material like groceries and PPE equipment like masks, soap, sanitizers and the like for our 1,200 workmen at site, we directly contacted the market, identified vendors who had stock, procured permissions for vehicle movement from the district administration with the help of our admin team and ensured delivery of the supplies. We were able to source PPE items from a regular vendor,” he informs adding that, “We arranged for a sanitizing chamber, provided N95 masks to all the staff, surgical masks and gloves to all the workmen.”
Even when the lockdown restrictions were relaxed and operations resumed at site, Mahendra’s role remained crucial as a site cannot function properly without essential items and it was his responsibility to ensure that adequate stocks were readily available. “My Project Manager was extremely concerned about the COVID situation and its impact on the project, so he kept regularly following up with me for items,” says Mahendra. “In fact, he meticulously monitors things as per the management guidelines.” Going forward, even as projects learn to live with the virus, people like Mahendra must continue to lend vital support to keep operations ticking.
“After 27 years of service, there is not one but many aspects of L&T that make me proud of this great organization,” he says revealing his admiration for the company he keeps. “Whether it is career growth or opportunities or recognition or even family and medical care, this company is the best.”
Mahendra hails from Jhalun in Uttar Pradesh, is married to Poonam, a homemaker and they are blessed with two daughters, Nimisha and Richa. Of course, he loves to spend time with them when he is not practising yoga.
ENJOYING THE FREEDOM
TO PERFORM
Koushik Upadhyay
Construction Manager (Civil), RREC
“I really enjoy the freedom to work at L&T which has hugely helped me to plan my activities and execute them at site even at critical times,” declares Koushik Upadhyay, presently working at the Mumbai Nagpur Expressway project. Having joined the company in 2006, he is already on his fifth project after stints at the BIAL, HGSRP, Gujarat, Beawar Pali Pindwara and SR Way, Odisha projects before taking up responsibilities at his present assignment.
“With cases rising in Maharashtra, no one was really interested to come to work at our project so I realized that I had a tough job on my hands to mobilize as much as labour by the time the Unlock was announced,” shares Koushik. “I personally visited some villages to locate workmen and initially we got about 50 of them to carry out the day-to-day small concreting and housekeeping works. We continued to work at it and with our collective efforts, we were able to mobilize about 300 fresh labour.” As soon as this new force was in place, the project team quickly planned and executed some milestone works like VUP at 488 State Highway (in the midst of live traffic), Canal Bridge at 473 and BC at 475 (100 m length). “We were helped by our good planning, our stringent SOPs and very good management support.”
Koushik is extremely thankful to the Site Management for considering his request of sending conveyance vehicles to West Bengal, Jharkhand and UP to re-mobilize labour as soon as the Unlock was announced. “They immediately understood my proposal and approved it which helped me to restart the balance activities at site.”
If the project is proceeding in high gear after the Unlock, it has a lot to do with the way the SOPs are followed, and all precautions taken.
“I appreciate the organization for giving as much as importance to Safety and Quality as to execution.” Another organizational initiative to drive digitalization has helped him a lot during these tough times and Koushik flags off digital solutions like WISA, Procube and electronic attendance marking as very useful to maintain COVID-19 protocols.
Hailing from Durgapur in West Bengal, Koushik likes to travel and listen to music and, of course, share quality time with his wife, Sinjini, who is a dance teacher and daughter, Shreetoma. “The birth of my daughter has been the happiest moment of my life,” he says with a broad smile.
WINGS TO IMPLEMENT NEW IDEAS
Faiz Ahmad Siddiqui
Construction Manager (Civil), RREC
After having worked with other construction organizations, Faiz Siddiqui finds L&T’s project management a class apart. “I am a proud L&T-ite because the company gives me the freedom to work independently and take decisions in the best interests of the work,” he says. “It provides me the wings to implement new ideas to complete the work within scheduled cost and timelines. L&T is also the best in terms of providing training to its employees by regularly organising training programmes to enhance our skill sets.” Presently, Faiz is a part of the EDFC CP 303, 225 km long project that stretches from Khurja in the western part of Uttar Pradesh to the Pilkhani district of western UP.
When operations resumed on May 6th, the two major issues facing Faiz and his team were the shortage of labour and nonsupply of adequate resources. “Most of our works at site are machine oriented and given to subcontractors on back-to-back basis but re-mobilising them was very challenging in this pandemic situation. Ensuring a continuous supply for bulk materials was also a challenge as interstate commuting was strictly prohibited.” They evolved plans to tackle these issues and their labour strength increased from 50 to 250 workmen by June. “Meanwhile, our earthwork teams increased from 03 during lockdown to 11 by 15th June,” shares Faiz. In addition, the team successfully obtained special passes from the district administration and the railways to ensure interstate movement of bulk materials thus ensuring the availability of adequate stock.
“As per our mantra of ‘Chase Cash’, we took up the issue with our clients to ensure ‘One Time Payment’ of our invoicing held up due to stage payments,” referring to a pending matter with the client. “Other than financial support, our client, DFCCIL also ensured that special passes were issued from the local administration for us to continue working during the lockdown.”
It has been a triumph of teamwork, acknowledges Faiz. “Our team members have been pillars of strength during these tough times, always ready to face and overcome all challenges,” he shares “always ready to put their best foot forward and complete the task within schedules. My seniors were a great support for me as they kept me and my team motivated. Our Project Manager, Vikram Kohli has been another great tower of strength.”
Faiz comes from Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh, is married to Nida Mushtaq, a homemaker, and they are blessed with three daughters, Hibah, Mawra and Qurat. During his free time, Faiz likes to play cricket and listen to soft music. The inauguration of the Gulawthi NTC Yard has been a hugely satisfying moment for Faiz.
“THE ACTIONS BY THE COMPANY HAVE BEEN EXEMPLARY!”
Monoj Kumar Deb
Construction Manager (Civil), RREC
Presently in his first assignment with L&T at the Ghospukur Salsalabari Road project, Monoj Kumar Deb is full of praise for his company for the way it has prioritized the health and safety of its employees and workmen before business. “The actions taken by the company have been exemplary,” he says with conviction, “and the way the senior management has taken care of people across sections is really worth mentioning.”
A veteran of several projects before joining L&T, Monoj’s biggest challenge at GSRP has been to arrange for manpower. “Since most of our skilled workers were from other states, they had left for their native places. So, we were forced to recruit locally available workers, who were oblivious of the construction industry. We had to train them about the job, motivate them to work tirelessly while, at the same time, follow all the safety guidelines.” Understandably, getting these workmen to follow the new norms of working and the COVID-19 guidelines are proving to be tough propositions as is coping with the local administration.
With operations resuming, the pressure on Monoj and his colleagues were to start running. “To achieve our milestones, I had to motivate the subcontractor agencies to commence work,” he explains. “As there were various agencies involved in different tasks, I had to go to the grassroot level to convince them to initiate work. There were six earthwork agencies, involving a large work pool, apart from the labour contractors.” In fact, he went one step further by visiting every camp of his vendors, sanitizing their colonies, and making them aware of the Do’s and Don’ts to prevent the spread of the virus. “We engaged the new workmen and trained them, kept the new ones separately in quarantine rooms and ensured the safety of workmen through regular screening.”
Monoj appreciates the guidance of his seniors and his team’s cooperation. “My senior supported us wholeheartedly in the decision making while pointing out loopholes to help solve various administrative problems. He provided the required resources as and when required to complete our targets and my team, honoured the collective decisions to complete the tasks accordingly,” he says, revelling in the success of teamwork.
Monoj, as his name suggests, comes from Silchar in Assam, is married to Paramita, a homemaker, and they have two children: daughter, Megha and son, Soumik. He fondly recollects his daughter’s birth as a most memorable moment. Monoj loves driving and reading books but sadly hardly finds time for both.
IT IS SO REWARDING TO SAVE A LIFE
Narayan Gupta
Manager (Industrial Relations), RREC
Keeping employees and workmen safe is the foremost consideration for all HR, IR and EHS personnel during these days of the pandemic and for Narayan Gupta at the Ghoshpukur – Salsalabari road project, saving a life has been an extremely rewarding experience. “During March, Jyotirmoy Chakraborty, a supervisor with of one of our subcontractors was suffering from severe abdominal pain and couldn’t access proper treatment at the Jalpaiguri area,” he shares. “I immediately arranged an ambulance and he was admitted at the North Bengal Medical Hospital, Siliguri in a serious condition requiring an immediate operation. After consultations with the doctors, he was successfully operated upon and touchwood, he is fine,” says Narayan, touching his head.
Apart from saving lives and keeping his employees and workmen at site safe by religiously following all the SOPs and taking every precaution, Narayan had the onus of addressing the labour issue. “It was a challenging time for me to convince our workmen to stay back as critical works had already started at site and we needed skilled manpower. I was able to retain them to some extent,” he says. “Another major problem was to re-mobilize workmen for which our priority was to arrange as many quarantine rooms as possible at site locations for the newly deployed labour and we arranged facilities for about 100 workmen.” They speeded up the screening process as about 600 new workmen were deployed. “Due to this timely action, our project achieved several milestones like the opening of the strategically important Teesta Bridge, Kantivita ROB-1 and the Ghoshpukur flyover,” he says, happy with his contribution.
Aware of the financial burden that the organization was bearing, Narayan and his team discussed with various landowners and vehicle owners to reduce land rent and vehicle hire charges, saving up to INR 10 lakhs in the process. “I am very grateful to my seniors for their valuable advice, and the necessary support to face and overcome this difficult situation to maintain the site and safeguard the health of our people,” says Narayan, acknowledging the role of his site leadership.
“My most memorable moment was when I received my appointment letter from L&T,” he says delightedly. Narayan hails from the Barwani district of MP, is married to Sarika, a homemaker, and they are blessed with a 10-year-old daughter, Aashini. “My wife was so happy and proud of me when I joined L&T and I was extremely happy and proud when I received the DELTA Award-2020 in Mumbai for Best Energy Optimization,” he smiles. During his free time, he likes to paint and listen to good music, but his Sundays are exclusively for his daughter.
When faced with a crisis, it always helps to prepare and plan to face it. At RREC’s Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway Project, along with his planning team, Gandi Saikumar has been fighting to stay ahead of the pandemic. “Our biggest problem was the shrinking labour force at site for which our Structure Labour Team proved to be a big asset,” he explains. “Initially, we convinced nearly 400 of our workmen to remain at site and later during the lockdown, we mobilized another 1,400 from across the country by being in constant communication with them, even arranging transportation for them right from their homes to our site.” Saikumar is obviously pleased with their effort because the results have been more than encouraging. “On one hand, we achieved our invoice targets and executed 12,969 quantum of concrete production work in the month of May,” he says, leaning back with an air of having done it! He mentions the weekly perks that they have introduced for the workmen that has also pushed up productivity.
On his second project, after an initial stint at the Kanaktora Jharsugda Road project, Saikumar gratefully acknowledges that both his client and vendors have been willing to adjust and work according to the new situation. “Our client has relaxed our billing schedules as per the guidelines of the Central Government that has helped us to maintain our cash flows while our vendors, although with much persuasion, have continued their service.” With cost control becoming one of the prime focus areas in the present situation, Saikumar has been in the thick of finding and implementing ways to reduce costs. “We were able to convince our P&M vendors to drop down their IHC to minimum feasible costs during the lockdown and we even de-hired some machinery, about 70 assets like pavers, rollers, transit mixers, water tankers to reduce our overheads.”
Hailing from the young state Telangana’s capital, Hyderabad, Saikumar loves to take long drives in his free time with his wife, Madhuri, a homemaker and son, Sriyansh but laments that he hardly gets any opportunities to pursue his hobby. “The birth of my beloved son was undoubtedly the most memorable moment of my life,” he says with great feeling, “Yes,” he nods, “Digitalisation certainly helped us during the lockdown. We could monitor assets through fuel sensors, the FD App, online weighing, and the like. And, of course, there was continuous learning through Webinars, Teams. Lastly I am really thankful to our Management for giving me the chance to work with such a fantastic organization,” he signs off gratefully.
SURMOUNTING HUGE OBSTACLES
TO SUCCEED
Gurvinder Singh
Assistant Construction Manager (Civil), RREC
“My jurisdiction (D1) has a total scope of 78 lakh cum of earthwork which is the highest among all the stretches and consequently the arrangement of such huge quantum of borrow earth soil has been my biggest challenge,” explains Gurvinder Singh, from the EDFC CP 303 project that involves civil construction and track works of 222 km single railway line on a design, build and lumpsum basis. “D1 is also one of the most difficult places to work due to its typical topography, network of canals and the sugarcane belt, considering which it is also the most difficult to arrange for borrow earth. After a lot of deliberation with the farmers and our continuous effort, I was able to get 5 lakh cum of earth in a single day from the farmers which was indeed a Eureka moment for me and my team,” he shares proudly. A related issue for Gurvinder was the closure of the mining and other government offices due to the lockdown but with proper liaising, borrow earth soil was made available for work to proceed smoothly.
Procuring borrow earth soil was not Gurvinder’s only obstacle. “Arrangement of labour was an issue after many of them returned to their native places and mobilizing the locally available labour was an even bigger challenge,” he remarks. “Procurement of bulk materials was critical for smooth progress but with inter-state and intra-state traffic movements prohibited that was an issue and in a linear run project like ours, training workmen about the COVID precautions along the entire stretch was very tough.”
Not one to be deterred, Gurvinder and his team set about overcoming their many obstacles. “By engaging rigorously with them, we increased the number of subcontractors from 3 to 12 in the ERS works alone as ERS construction is critical for further formation works in the detour. Our earthwork teams also increased from 6 to 14 by mid-June,” he shares some of their wins. Special passes from the district administration and the railways opened the way for interstate movement of bulk materials.
“But key to our success has been the motivational and financial support from our senior management during these tough times,” says a grateful Gurvinder. “Our Project Manager, Mr. Vikram Kohli gave us a free hand to go to any extent financially to ensure the safety of all our work staffs including subcontractors which eventually brought us great benefits across all work fronts.”
Having fought so many battles, it is not surprising that Gurvinder hails from Kurukshetra in Haryana. His better half is Neelam Rani, a homemaker, and they have three children: daughters Gunjan Kaur and Gurveen Kaur and son, Ridham Jot Singh. Newspapers and novels hold Gurvinder’s interest during his free time.
STRIVING TO KEEP HIS SAFETY
RECORD INTACT
Debajit Jana
Senior EHS Engineer, RREC
During these days of the pandemic, an EHS Manager’s singleminded focus is to keep his employees and workmen safe from infection and Debajit Jana declares, with a certain degree of pride, that there has yet not been a single COVID positive case among the workmen at his Ghoshpukur Salsalabari Road project. “We have been diligently following all the mandates and advisories,” he shares enthusiastically. “We have verified all our arrangements and measures taken as per the SOPs of the local District administration, health department authorities and other local government officials. They have appreciated our initiatives and have given us lots of certificates of appreciation,” he grins though keeping his safety record intact in such times has been no laughing matter.
“Our main problems are threefold and all of them are labour related,” he says holding up three fingers. “First, the shortage of workmen as several of them had returned to their native places and sadly, our subcontractors have not been very keen to bring them back. Secondly, we are facing huge issues of lack of skilled labour and last, though definitely not the least, is the problem of new labour, the local unskilled workmen who have no appreciation of safety or work procedures.” Training is essential for this ‘raw’ labour. Since it is not possible to train them in big groups owing to the restrictions, Debajit and team have been organizing frequent and a greater number of small group training sessions that are helping.
Although the COVID situation is without precedent, Debajit is still able to draw from his experience of having worked at two RREC projects previously: at the Kanaktora Jharsuguda road project and later at the Beawar Pali Pindwara project. Driving safety is not a one man’s job and Debajit is thankful to his seniors and team members for their cooperation and support. “With the guidance and moral support from our Project Manager Sir, our team has performed excellently. He has given us a free hand to take decisions to combat this pandemic for the betterment of this project as well as the organisation. I am especially thankful to my seniors at HQ for their guidance, support and for providing detailed and easy-to-follow SOPs.”
Debajit comes from Nandapur, Chandipur in West Bengal, is married to Sumana, a homemaker, and the couple are blessed with a daughter, Divyashri. “Her birth has been the most joyous moment of my life,” gushes a loving father. He loves to play cricket during his free time but cannot find too much of it, he smiles a trifle sadly.
“I’m proud to be part of India’s Number One construction company,” he says with fervour, “that values my ideas and gives me opportunities for continuous learning and development!”
Although the restrictions have been relaxed, the threat of the pandemic remains and as sites return to action, the focus has been to keep our people safe from the virus as it is for IR Executive, Swagat Patra at the Mumbai Vadodara Expressway project. “Since many workmen had left for their native places, we had to induct new local labour who were mostly untrained but it did not matter where they came from for all of them had to be thoroughly screened, checked, given the necessary PPE equipment before starting work. We could not even miss one because that could result in the infection spreading,” says Swagat, highlighting the seriousness of his responsibility.
Initially, the team decided to only have a few personnel at work whose presence was essential but soon as the pace of activities started to pick up, the numbers rose as did the risk. “But we were not impacted,” Swagat is assertive, “because our team was successfully implementing all the necessary safety measures as published by the Government.” Swagat’s workload also includes arranging for rooms or flats for the new labour, creating quarantine centres and isolation rooms, operating separate vehicles to bring back labour from their native places, conducting awareness programmes, giving pep talks for everyone to take precautions, the list is long.
“Every moment that I have spent at L&T has been memorable especially when I was promoted,” he says with feeling, having started his career with the company in 2010. “I started off as an IR Assistant at the Jindal Power Project after which I got a chance to work at Maharashtra Power Plant, RRVUNL, Power Project. Then, as Assistant IR officer under contractual terms, I was posted at the Kannur International Airport Project and later at the Hospet Chitradurga Road Project, Karnataka.” In 2018, Swagat became a permanent employee and was posted at ACCD Project, Telangana from where he has moved to his present assignment.
He calls himself lucky for having found co-operation and support all around to perform his duties. “Our conveyance vendors fully supported us by running their vehicles at huge risk during the lockdown while the local vendors have been very nice, helping us regularly and promptly with our essential items. Internally, all my seniors and each and every member of my team have guided me very well in all situations whenever I have approached them for any clarification or guidance for any problem.”
Hailing from the village of Bhadrak in Odisha, Swagat has been married to Sumati for the last six years. “I am a fitness freak,” he smiles, “and to keep my body in shape I regularly walk and occasionally do some yoga!”