TO MAINTAIN ‘BUSINESS AS USUAL’, SAFETY WAS AN IMPERATIVE FOR TI IC

The COVID-19-induced lockdown disrupted lives across the world and, more particularly, in our country; new ways and means of working evolved. “It is interesting that the lockdown actually forced us to work remotely which is the best form of social distancing,” observes Subhamoy Maitra, Head – EHS, RREC, TI IC. “In fact, with Microsoft Teams, we had a unified communication and collaboration platform that brought us together with continual workplace chat, video meetings with project teams and other stakeholders. It really helped us connect with people, helped to improve health and safety standards at the workplace and overall, went a long way to achieve our collective objective of maintaining ‘business as usual’.”

Preparing for battle

With the prime objective of keeping employees, workmen, families, and communities safe, TI IC facilitated a uniform standard of COVID-19 precautionary measures across all their offices, establishments, and project sites. “We created SOPs based on our business needs and expectations to manage the risks arising out of COVID-19,” remarks Subhamoy, “with special emphasis on SOPs to be followed while restarting activities across all projects once the lockdown was lifted.” The procedure, that supplemented and not replaced the requirements stated in the L&T Corporate HR guidelines and those issued by the Central, state & local government authorities, set out the minimum requirements to be followed across projects, though sites were urged to exercise additional stringent measures depending on the locally prevailing conditions.

As soon as the lockdown was imposed, the Railways SBG EHS-HQ team triggered an Emergency Management Plan (EMP) across 21 active projects spread across western, eastern, northern and southern parts of India with massive scale and speed focused on health and safety of all. “Our EHS teams swiftly integrated with Emergency Response Teams (ERT) at the project level to implement COVID-19 measures detailed in the SOP released by corporate HR in alignment with local district level regulations,” informs Alok Sharma, Head – EHS, Railways SBG.

The exhaustive SOPs for TI IC involved the formation of SOP implementation & surveillance committees, daily monitoring through video conferencing with key members, regular fumigation, sanitization of all premises, thermal temperature screening & health check- ups, setting up of touch-free hand sanitizers & hand washing facilities, arrange for isolation rooms, manage groceries, PPEs and other essentials, conduct daily awareness drives, display awareness posters, organize awareness programmes and ensure maintenance of hygiene especially at the labour camps.

With employees and workmen stranded at various points along project alignments, a unique challenge for both road and railways projects were to ensure permits for people to reach those stranded and to reach essentials across to them. “Obtaining permits from the local authorities for any emergency work was one of our most critical deliverables and that depended to a large extent on the nature of relationships we had built with these authorities,” points out Alok. “In most cases, they worked out well and we also had an emergency vehicle always on standby, 24×7, to deal with any
kind of emergency.”

Setting up offices at homes

Perhaps, a critical step to keep business rolling was to quickly set up offices at various homes of executives for which the IC’s systems personnel rose to the occasion and delivered despite several restrictions and roadblocks. “Our responsibility was to provide remote desktop support for all the TI IC employees in the shortest time possible,” says Yobu Paul, Manager – Systems. “We had to ensure the availability of hardware like laptops for the junior cadre staff and desktops at home, wherever laptops were not available. Working from home was new to many of our colleagues but with our help and prompt action, they were able to adjust quickly, and resume work.”

In fact, the systems team got cracking within an hour of the declaration of the lockdown as Assistant Manager – Systems, Bibhuti Bhushan Mishra adds. “Apart from the massive exercise of mobilizing IT hardware (desktops & laptops) to individual houses and guesthouses for teams to work from home, we set up a VPN for users to access their database remotely again in a day’s time. We even efficiently enabled IT infrastructure for a team of 150 – 200 Design Engineers to help them work from home,” he says with a wide smile. 

Deployment of new EHS tools & guidelines:

“Following our philosophy of continuous improvement, we developed various new EHS tools to plan for work resumption,” shares Alok. “The STARRT Card incorporated COVID-19 mitigation measures aimed at visual check points and administrative controls for safe work start-up. Apart from a COVID-19 screening tracker for staff/workmen, we also conducted a safety reboot series of webinars on critical hazards related to railway construction activities to cover last mile EHS staff.” The team expanded access for the digital safety app (PREPS App) among project staff for virtual EHS inspection and permit systems and encouraged the extensive use of the Arogya Setu app at both project sites
and offices. 

Work resumption and a new ‘Normal’

“Since our EHS processes were sound and effectively implemented at the ground level we were ready to start running as soon as the lockdown was relaxed,” says Alok brightly. “Clients and district authorities promptly granted various permissions for work resumption and by the end of May’20, all our RBG projects commenced work in green and non-hot zones and are progressively achieving business as usual at our project sites.” 

“Stakeholders and various clients have applauded our efforts and milestones achieved in the COVID-19 environment,” Alok’s sense of achievement is evident. “On 4th June’20, one of the key customers (DFCCIL) presented us with an appreciation certificate at WDFC CTP-14 project for achieving 12 Million safe man hours and for the special efforts taken during the lockdown for the wellbeing of workmen.”

As a reach out measure, EHS teams have been part of COVID-19 PPEs distribution to local government hospitals and communities across project sites.

DNV.GL – External audits

TI IC was successfully certified by M/s DNV to continue its certification on ISO 45001 (OH&S) & 14001 (EMS). The scope of the audit was Management of Implementation and Compliance with Environmental, Occupational Health and Safety Requirements at Project Sites and Offices. It is noteworthy  that, due to the lockdown and travel restrictions, a Remote Audit was planned instead of the regular audit process. “This is the first time we have conducted a remote audit and successfully achieved the intended outcome of the Management system,” shares a visibly happy Subhamoy. 

Alok chips in, “Recently, our EDFC CP 204 project (Allahabad) was virtually audited by DNV for external surveillance audit related to ISO 45001 (OH&S) and ISO 14001 (EMS) which was satisfactorily conducted totally through remote mode. Customers are also carrying out virtual EHS inspections at work locations through face time and
Skype,” he adds.

“With a proactive EHS management system in place, we are always on the front foot and with the support of our senior management and our resilient project teams, we will continue to abide by stringent protocols for a safe work place,” affirms a determined Alok.