11 projects win ‘Sword of Honour’ awards.
11 sterling examples of EHS excellence.

Certainly, all these projects would have ticked the usual EHS boxes of developing & maintaining a robust safety culture, ensuring buy-ins from all stakeholders, involving senior leadership in the EHS process, and driving continuous improvement. This article attempts to look beyond the obvious and showcase some innovative measures these eleven projects – 8 from B&F, 2 from WET, and 1 from Railways SBG – adopted that won them such high praise and honour for their EHS performance.

MAHSR C6 Stations & Depot Project

As India’s first high-speed rail project begins to take concrete shape, Project Director, Sukanta Majumdar and his Senior EHS Manager, Govind Mahajan, at the B&F project, seem to have prepared themselves beforehand for the BSC Five Star Audit by planning site logistics aligned to the audit requirements at a very early stage of their project. “Apart from implementing all applicable SOPs from the beginning, we have integrated all the Five Star Audit requirements into all our activities at site and constantly brief our people about them,” smiles Sukanta. The team’s alertness to spot deviations has gone a long way in maintaining their high safety standards.

RRTS Track Works Package 17, Railways SBG

“Our EHS success is based on some key pillars,” remarks Project Manager, Sandeep Kumar Kaushik, ticking them off on his fingers. “Ensuring regulatory compliance, regularly assessing risks, conducting audits and inspections, maintaining emergency preparedness, and using KPIs to transparently track progress to achieve our EHS goals.” One of their off-the-beaten-track initiatives has been to include well-being into the EHS system. “Mental health and wellbeing (psychosocial) hazards are identified by assessing well-being risks, using existing and newly introduced control measures,” he informs, mentioning a well-being and mental health guide that the team has developed, in consultation with a psychologist, and training to detect early signs of ill health.

To minimize the risk of road accidents, Chief EHS Manager, Dr Vishwa Kant Pandey refers to the introduction of rumble strips and Impact Protection Vehicles (IPVs). “The advantages are many,” he assures, “ensuring smooth flow of traffic without impacting construction activities, reducing the danger of collisions, minimizing property damage, and improving visibility.” Being light & flexible, these can be easily repositioned.

Common Central Secretariat Building 1, 2, & 3, New Delhi

That his team has already clocked 25+ million safe manhours after pouring more than 30,000 cum. of concrete in a month brings a smile to S Sekaran’s otherwise taciturn face. For Umesh Chandra Swain, who leads a young and energetic EHS team, “Safety is in teamwork, and my team is committed to achieve excellence in EHS,” reflected in the 92.69% they scored in the Five Star Audit. Sekaran lists a few ‘must dos’ at site to maintain their high EHS standards: regular reviews, compliance verifications that are also done during monthly CAS site audits, monthly motivational awards, and working on feedback after visits by the top management and the client.

Umesh mentions their tele belt solution that conveys sand to the basement level without polluting the environment and a customized screw conveyor used to dose crystalline powder admixture that saves time and cost, reduces risk of working at height, and has won them the client’s appreciation. “To mitigate the challenge of managing slurry/green concrete, we have introduced a customized recycling plant with a filter press machine in which water in the cement slurry is filtered out, leaving behind semi-solid cakes that are re-used for sprinkling and further recycled to mould bricks,” elaborates Umesh, as a perfect example of recycling waste at site. Air quality is matter of perennial concern in Delhi, and apart from continuously monitoring the site’s AQI or Air Quality Index, they deploy mist guns to suppress dust.

Innovation Campus, Chennai

Project Manager, Singaram Vadivazhagan, attributes their EHS success to two innovations at site: pioneering the use of safety screens in the construction of commercial buildings and introducing prefabricated scaffolds to construct columns more efficiently and safely. A strong believer in the power of Predictive Analytics, he says, “Along with my EHS team, I closely monitor realtime data on ‘safety risk profiling’ to guide our decision-making and focus on high-risk areas for continuous improvement. Section In-charges also engage with the Predictive Analytics dashboard daily, promptly addressing concerns and ensuring a safe work environment.”

Senior EHS Manager, T Bhuvaneshwaran adds that having identified work at height, transport hazards, and material handling with equipment as the top hazards during the planning stage, the team has conducted detailed risk assessments with control measures to address them and continuously monitor these control measures to ensure compliance. “One of the unique risk mitigation measures appreciated by the auditor is competency assurance for safety critical roles among the workmen and standardized training for them in pictorial form/videos & regional languages.”

Super Specialty Hospital Project, Warangal

“We have given great importance to involving and empowering all staff, supervisors, and workmen to report near misses & hazards and intervene in case of at-risk behaviour,” shares Project Director, Vadde Venkat Reddy, citing it as a major reason for their triumph. “Section In-charges are empowered to implement all best practices and SOPs, keeping customers and management requirements on priority with individuals made self-responsible without micro-level monitoring and follow-ups. Near misses, hazards, and interventions are monitored through a digital app for better results.”

Assistant EHS Manager, P S N Reddy, informs that they have subdivided their project into 4 mini projects to create positive competition between the teams. “Team leaders of each mini project are empowered and motivated to achieve their EHS goals, and combined team leaders’ weekly EHS walkdowns are helping to spot best practices and areas of improvement,” he mentions. They have initiated a remote control placed in the cabin of the Batching Plant to operate the conveyor belt, which reduces the exposure of an operator working alone near the conveyor operation, and have instituted monthly motivational programmes for best performers and SCOPE awards, encouraging the staff & workmen to internalize the EHS culture.

CIDCO, Taloja

Project Manager, Sachin Suryawanshi, is delighted that his team demonstrated operational controls across all activities during the Five Star Audit and a high level of compliance in the areas specifically verified by the auditor. “Behavioural aspects are significant considerations to maintain high EHS standards at site, which we have addressed by conducting staff and workmen surveys with good results and close supervision,” he notes. His EHS Manager, Bijay Kumar Nayak, mentions some of their innovations at site, adding that providing EHS infrastructure and maintaining it over 42 acres is a tall order. “We have implemented a lightweight safety screen to mitigate falling hazards from height and introduced a fume extractor machine to prevent serious health hazards arising from welding activity.” He adds that implementing various mechanical aids and equipment to minimize manual material handling to prevent ergonomics risk factors have proved hugely beneficial to keep their high EHS standards.

JRS Project, Ahmedabad

“We introduced a new concept commonly known as Prep Meeting,” informs Project Manager, Hemant Gupta, “during which we discuss the upcoming activities to be carried out on site with all stakeholders including safety and quality, how the activities are to be carried out, and any hold points for quality and safe work methods.” He adds that the best part of these workshops is the inclusion of chargehand and foreman–level people, so that everything is well understood, and precautionary measures are cascaded to ground level.

On the digital front, apart from deploying the Safety & IB4U Apps, and the Housekeeping Indicator, Hemant refers to using BIM for safety to view various interfaces, prepare safe scaffolds, and prioritize work sequences accordingly. Senior EHS Manager, Chirag Soni, adds a couple of other innovations like fixing HVAC ducts with insulation material at ground level, extensively using scissor lifts at height instead of scaffolds, and converting weld to bolted joints to reduce the amount of welding & work at height.

GMCH Project, Jajpur

“Infrastructure facility to monitor the project smoothly with minimum hazards is vital,” says Project Manager, Subrata Chakravarthy. “Secondly, housekeeping should be maintained in every place to encourage workmen to work smoothly and without any hazard, and thirdly, the workmen habitat should be well provided to maintain health and hygiene. A more habitable camp can certainly reduce attrition,” he maintains. Greater focus on developing and improving working knowledge of workmen & Front Line Supervisors, motivating them to be involved in various activities, upward communication, and rewarding them by distributing the SCOPE awards in front of the entire workforce seem to be the team’s formula for EHS success. “We have listed all the EHS parameters to proactively monitor performance, with the score printed on a pocket card, and circulated to all staff members to remind them to comply without fail.”

“It is hard work to maintain high EHS standards, and it is only possible by stringently implementing systems and processes,” he cautions. His Senior EHS Manager, Manoj Kumar Bhadra, shrugs that their success is sticking to the basics and doing the simple things right like daily SRMs by the Project Manager with all the staff to communicate about important EHS-related messages & improvements, more EHS walkdowns by committee members, area-wise weekly EHS meetings, and managing subcontractors more strictly.

Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) Project, Sonipat

The challenges for Project Manager, Mir Golam Moinuddin, and Assistant EHS Manager, Vijay Verma, were that their project was at a very initial stage with lots of deep excavations and piling works going on, and that they had to manage 2,000 workmen at site. Riding on Vijay’s experience of having managed BSC audits in the past, Mir led from the front, participating in all the walkdowns, attending review meetings, and motivating the team during the morning meetings. Their state of preparedness is highlighted by Mir: “During the Audit, the auditor asked us for the training and induction details of one of the workmen he had interacted with. We shared the details within a minute as all the data was available in WISA. That truly impressed him,” smiles Mir, who adds that the BSC auditor praised them for their presentation and even took a copy of it with him.

Tirunelveli UGSS – Phase II, WET IC

Apart from using psychiatric services on-site to manage stress and the Employee Assistance Programme to improve well-being, Project Manager,
S Venkatesh, recognizes the View EHS digital App to be one of the key reasons for his site winning the Award. “The ease with which we presented the compliance evidence to the BSC Auditor is commendable as everything from our monthly activity plans to the workmen’s training schedules, site inspections, EHS meetings, and daily observations were digitally recorded and readily available in the system,” he says with a thumbs-up. Referring to a few of their ‘innovations’ at site, EHSO, S Narayanan, mentions designing a mobile floor crane with jack arrangements to move the inspection chambers in crowded streets that were not accessible to cranes or backhoes. “We created a manhole chamber cover lifting tool for workers to effortlessly lift the soil-clogged manhole covers while performing non-routine tasks like taking measurements, a brick lifting tool for better ergonomics, and a telescopic shoring access/egress platform to carry our trench work safely.” He reminds that all these initiatives were vetted and certified by the approved third-party agencies before deployment at site.

Surya WSS, WET IC

That they constructed the longest tunnel executed by L&T with a TBM which is also a first-of-its-kind pressurized segmental tunnel for treated water in India are matters of great pride for Project Director, Colin Nonis, his Manager – EHS, Yadav Prince Avadhraj, and his entire team. “Maintaining safety inside tunnels calls for a high degree of care, and attention and it was the first time we were indulging in such an activity in WET IC,” remarks Colin. Prince chips in to add, “We were continuously monitoring the working environment inside the tunnel by checking the oxygen levels on an hourly basis with multi gas detectors and mini-Oximeters, placed inside the TBM machine, and monitoring noise, illumination, and temperature levels every hour.” Inspections, maintenance of records, and using findings & learnings proved invaluable during the Audit, and Prince again salutes the value of View EHS: “On it we managed all kinds of inspections, training records, and raising UAs/UCs/UBs that gave us a one-point easy access to all records and comprehensive analyses for continuous improvement. Even our SEC & work permit systems were implemented through View EHS,” he emphasizes.