Ashoka Buildcon: Sanjay Londhe, Director & CEO - Projects
All review meetings, project site inspections, testing and inspections are being conducted in virtual mode.
Paper transactions for inter-department communications and management approvals have been completely eliminated by shifting to electronic mode. Employees have been working from home whenever there are government restrictions and there have been no interruptions in routine activities. All review meetings are being conducted in virtual mode. Project site inspection by important stakeholders is conducted on virtual mode, as is testing and inspection by clients, consultants, and other external agencies.
We collaborate with product manufacturers to arrange training programs for our staff to ensure that the equipment and technology is deployed optimally. We are very particular about after sale services and customer support aspects, including warranty/guarantee assurances, whenever we adopt new equipment and technology.
Machinery breakdown during work in progress can cause painful delays in work. We have set up mobile workshops at our sites to execute repairs at sites. This saves time to a great extent and helps us in getting the machine back to work at the earliest.
It was a challenge to deal with certain issues that arose due to the pandemic.
The pandemic caused a certain degree of disruption in our operations. These included the threat of our workforce getting infected, which was a primary concern. We were quick to take measures such as following social distancing norms, regular health examinations, sanitization, creating isolation wards etc.
Since we believe in employing local people to the extent possible extent; it worked well for us as it reduced commuting related issues of the staff.
We had to make alternate arrangements for procurement of resources due to the restrictions imposed in inter-state and intra-state movement of goods and people. There was an unprecedented shortage of industrial oxygen which affected our steel fabrication works and had to switch to the plasma cutting method.
We are fortunate to have a team that is determined and eager to brave the odds, which made possible the construction of several challenging projects.
We had already set procedures for prevention of infectious diseases for our onsite workers. These procedures were augmented to meet the Covid guidelines. We raised the morale of our employees by taking measures for their health and safety. These included sanitization of the workplaces, counseling sessions by health officials, doctors and our in-house safety in-charge personnel, awareness videos and quiz sessions on the virus, health camps, labour camps, augmented travel facilities to ensure social distancing while mobilizing human resources; stress relieving exercises, felicitation of volunteers of relief activities, and a vaccination drive.
NBM&CW July 2021
