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Projects handled

As the formation of  major Public Sector Undertakings was in the initial stages at that time, the Government of India was offering attractive terms to Government servants to encourage them to opt for permanent absorption into Public Sector undertakings, to run the undertakings efficiently. Government servants were allowed to draw their full pension from the Government of India and also accept the full pay offered by the Public Sector Undertakings without any deduction towards pension being drawn by them from the Government of India. The terms and conditions offered to them by the Public Sector were also quite attractive when compared to Government scales.

I waited for over a year before I could make up my mind as I wanted to make sure that I really liked the change and was happy with the works that I was handling. Within the first year itself, I was entrusted with all the works for Bharat Heavy Electricals and on the Expansion work of Bhilai and Bokaro steel plants.  

Gradually more and more projects of other Undertakings  were also given to me during my service of 4 years with HSCL before my retirement in 1977. This was quite a major responsibility and involved visits to all parts of the country to organize and supervise  works. But I enjoyed handling these works as I gained considerable experience in dealing with various types of industrial projects. So on the 1st July 1974, I decided to terminate my services with the CPWD and to get myself absorbed permanently in Hindustan Steelworks Construction Ltd (HSCL).
 

The following are some of the projects handled by me: 

  1. Transformer Factory for B.H.E.L. at Jhansi. This factory was built using prefabricated pre-stressed concrete components which enabled construction of large span industrial sheds for use of gantry and overhead cranes of large capacity and erection of the electrical equipments provided by BHEL. A township was also built nearby and the Factory went into operation and production within two years.    
       
  2. Foundry Forge Project for BHEL at Hardwar. This involved expansion of the existing factory  to take up this additional production to cater to the needs of BHEL.
  3. Pumps and Compressors project at Allahabad for BHEL. This was a new project to meet the expansion needs of BHEL.
  4. Cable Factory at Hyderabad for BHEL This was also a new factory to cater to their requirements of cables for all their projects.
  5. Expansion of BHEL factory at Trichy with construction of additional sheds and erection of overhead cranes.
  6. Expansion of Cold Rolling Mill at Bokaro Steel Plant. This was a very major steel erection work involving fabrication and erection of about 3600 tons of steel every month.
  7. Expansion of Production lines at Bhilai Steel Plant. This also involved very heavy steel fabrication and erection work.
  8. Indian Telephone Industries projects both at Allahabad and Rae Bareli. The Factories went into production within two years.
  9. Scooter Factory for Ministry Of Industries at Lucknow. Here also prefabricated concrete components were used to expedite construction.
  10. A  Cement Plant for Ministry of Industries at Paonta Sahib in Himachal Pradesh. This involved design and erection of cement silos, grinding mill, conveyor belt arrangement, Mixing plant etc. A large township was also built to accommodate the entire staff  as there was no town worth its name near the Plant site.
  11. Baba Atomic Research Project for Ministry of Atomic Research at Hyderabad. This and the cable factory for BHEL at Hyderabad were inaugurated by Prime Minister Ms. Indra Gandhi, at the same time.
  12. Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Plant for Ministry of Health at Kanpur.
  13. Heavy foundations and erection of Boiler and Thermal units at Thermal Plant of U.P. State Electricity Board at Obra, UP.
  14. Foundations, cladding and connected infrastructure like coal handling, wagon tippler etc for Badarpur Thermal at Delhi.
  15. Erection of Boiler and Thermal units including coal handling plant and wagon tippler for Thermal Plant at Kanpur.
  16. Coal handling plant, wagon tippler and ash slurry disposal scheme at Faridabad Thermal Plant for Haryana State Electricity Board.
  17. Iron Ore Mining Project for Ministry of Steel at Kudremukh, Karnataka.

    Initial funding by the Shah of Iran: This was originally agreed to be funded by the Shah of Iran for $ 750 million on the condition that the work was definitely completed within a period of  3 years failing which he would withdraw the amount paid by him as advance along with interest. The Shah of Iran was interested in the Project as he was putting up a steel plant in Iran for which he wanted iron ore from us.  But it so happened that the Shah of Iran was thrown out in a coup and his place was taken over by Khomeni within about 1 ½ years from the start of the work. In the meantime, the Government of  India had received about $450  million and Khomeni stopped further payments,  accusing the Shah of Iran of corruption etc.

    Scope of work
    This work was an extremely difficult and complicated one  and Government of India had to appoint an International Consultant, M/s Howe and Co, a Canadian Firm for the entire planning and design work. The execution work was however entrusted to HSCL and I was made in charge of the project. Apart from other items of mechanical work, the actual construction work involved the drilling of two tunnels of a mile in length to take the iron ore made into slurry to Mangalore where an Iron ore Pellet plant was located to make the slurry into pellets and export them to Iran. A huge township with quarters, school, hospital etc had also to be built at Kudremukh to accommodate the entire operating staff  along with all services, roads etc. A Helipad was also to be provided for landing and taking off of helicopters as otherwise it involved almost a full day's travel to reach Kudremukh from Bangalore.

    Challenges:
    Because of the high importance given to the work, I had to shift my head quarters to Bangalore for almost a year, established a new office in the tall Utility building on Mahatma Gandhi Road and stayed at Spencer Road in Athai’s house. My visits to Kudremukh were always by helicopter from Bangalore. Though the full amount was not received from  Iran, Government of India decided that the project should be completed in time as originally planned. The  project was completed in time but could not be  operated  as there was no draw-off  of  iron ore pellets from Mangalore  by Iran as they  refused to take them.  The whole establishment remained at a stand-still for almost 3 years till the Government of India found alternative markets in  Australia, Algiers etc.

  18. Hydel Project at Supa for Mysore Power Corporation to develop 210 MW of power.

This involved the construction of 400 feet high concrete gravity dam. This was an interesting project as almost everything was done with the use of modern mechanical equipment. The fair weather flow of water at Supa was diverted through a tunnel in the adjoining hill, the entire area was dozed and dressed to the desired foundation requirements, side hills were strengthened by deep steel anchors using heavy duty compressors, stone aggregate was brought from sources 25 miles away through conveyor belts, cooling of aggregates was done through central air conditioning,  concrete was mixed through batching plants and concrete placed in the right blocks of the gravity wall through concrete buckets controlled electronically from a cabin. Most of the gadgets and mechanical equipment were purchased from Italy.

Mohan Boaz who was then working in my company  was sent to Italy to study the full mechanised operations connected with the project so that he could take charge of the mechanical part of the work. The work had reached 300 feet level when I left HSCL on retirement and the same was in good progress..

  1. A Power House Construction at 8 m below the bed level of Kalinadi River for generation of 50 MW of Power for Mysore Power Corporation.

Technical Expert and Engineering Consultant to Government of India Public Sector Undertakings

After my retirement from Hindustan Steelworks Construction Ltd. in May 1977, I was appointed as Technical Expert and Engineering Consultant to Government of India Public Sector Undertakings for design and construction of their buildings. The following works were some of the major projects undertaken by me during the period 1977 to 1985:-

1. For National Cooperative Development Corporation at     New Delhi.

This involved  construction of  a six-storeyed building covering a very large area and other smaller ancillary constructions.
This
large project was completed in a period of 9 months. 

2. For National Institute of Public Finance & Policy at New Delhi

This was a very prestigious building for the Government of India with costly finishing items of Dholpur stone cladding, vitrified tile flooring, Aluminium doors and windows and teakwood cupboards, counters etc. 

3.  Head-quarters and Offices of NAFED including residential buildings along with connected services at New Delhi.


This was a ten-storeyed construction, a tall truncated structure with highly complicated design involving partial pre-stressing in two stages. Very costly finishing items were provided.
 

4. Runway and Terminal Building for International Airport Authority of India at Halule, Maldive Islands.

The Airports Authority of India wanted to extend the Runway to cater to bigger planes and also a modern Terminal Building to meet the needs of the tourist traffic.

 

Challenges:

Maldive islands consisted of so many small islands, about 200 in number, of which only 37 islands were habitable. For extending the runway, I leveled two adjoining islands and dumped the excavated soil in between the two islands to raise the sea bed to the desired level. The filled up soil was nicely rolled and compacted. Except for sand, there was no other construction material available at Maldive Islands. It therefore became necessary to bring stone boulders, stone aggregates, bitumen etc from the Mainland of India to complete the Runway construction to take the heavy loads of planes.

Completion in 9 months

For the Terminal Building construction, in the absence of construction materials, I decided to set up a concrete site factory at Trivandrum to manufacture  pre-stressed and Reinforced concrete components and also concrete blocks. Aluminium doors and windows,  floor and wall tiles and paints etc were purchased from Trivandrum. With these  materials it was possible to complete the construction of the Terminal building in a record period of 9 months using industrialized method of construction. The completion of the Runway and Terminal building in such a short time was very much appreciated by the Government of Maldive Islands.
 

Redecon (India) Private Ltd.

There was a friend of mine, Mr. S. P. Caprihan, Chief Engineer,  Punjab Irrigation who was then very keen to start a Construction  Company of his own and he wanted me to join his firm. He was very good at executing irrigation works but did not have much experience in specialized civil construction works and in setting up industrial projects.

With the experience that I had gained in HSCL on turnkey projects, I was interested in widening my experience by taking up more complicated and varied types of works, some of them not tried before and so I joined him to form Redecon (India) Private Ltd. I was with this Firm from 1985 to 1996 and have handled some very interesting projects, some of which I am giving below: 

1. Planned, designed and constructed Workshops for Northern Coalfields, Singrauli, U.P. for use by 175 T dumpers with all connected facilities like Heavy and Running repair shops, erection of high capacity EOT cranes, sophisticated washing arrangement, aeration and air conditioning, fire fighting, electrical installations and all services and development works. Concrete pavements were provided in the entire complex specially designed to take such high density loadings. 

2. Rendered Consultancy and Construction supervision to the French Construction Firm Dumez executing the Dul Hasti Hydro-Electric Project at Kishtwar, Jammu & Kashmir, in the construction of 500 dwelling units for the staff and labour, office accommodation, diversion of river and stabilization of the rock slopes.

This was a disturbed area and during my consultancy assignment, two French Engineers were kidnapped by the Militants and were later released after a long time after payment of ransom they demanded by the French Company. 

3. Planning, designing and construction of Pollution Control and Re-Cycling Scheme at the Captive Power Plant of National Aluminium Company, at Angul, Orissa involving the provision of 65 MLD capacity Turbo-Circulator, high capacity pumping installations and 900 mm diameter pumping main, 6 ½ Km long. 

4. Planning, designing and raising the height of the Ash Pond by 10 m including all connected pipe lines at the Captive Power Plant of National Aluminium Company at Angul, Orissa. 

5. Planning and design of Treated water supply schemes at Itanagar, Naharlagun and Nirjuli of 16 MLD capacity for Arunachal Pradesh PWD involving the construction of an Intake well, Infiltration gallery, Jack well, Rising main, Aerator, Flash Mixer, Clarifloculator, Clear water reservoir, Booster pump house and storage tank, Electric Sub-station and Laboratory cum office building. 

6. Complete Soil, Field and Laboratory investigations for Central Mine Planning & Design Institute , Jharia Coalfield, Dhanbad over a very large area of their Industrial site.  This involved Sinking of bore holes, Soil sampling, Conducting standard penetration tests, Collecting Rock samples, Collecting water samples and all Laboratory tests as laid down in I.S. codes.

 

Putting down roots in Chennai

My official work finished with the projects mentioned above, with my departure from Delhi to Chennai in 1996. All through my stay at Delhi, whenever there was any technical help required from me from any source, I was always there to help as I considered this as a great privilege given to me by God to serve and share my experience and talent with others without expecting any reward, in return for the wonderful blessings that He had showered on me  and my family throughout my life.

 

 Links:

Silhouette of construction worker on site

What is impossible with men is possible with God. Luke 18:27

Steel Plants and other projects built by Hindustan Steelworks Constuction Limited

According to Wikipedia, BHEL is one of India's nine largest Public Sector Undertakings or 'Nine Jewels".

Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) is the largest engineering and manufacturing enterprise in India in the energy-related/infrastructure sector.

The largest iron ore mine in India is at Kudremukh, Karnataka.