Cultural shock

Cultural shock

In 1983, Pradip Nair, R Rajamani and myself joined PPD WR Baroda office with Vijay Parikh as our boss. BNS Moorthy and SR Utturkar were already there in Boiler erection group. All of us were sitting in the hall. In the lunch time people used to play carrom in the same hall. 

Coming from Trichy plant, it was a totally different environment for me.

In Trichy, were sitting in separate rooms , we had privacy.  Whatever we required, we had to tell the Office Superintendent (OS) of the department and it was taken care of. Even for going on tour, the OS would take care of ticket booking, informing ROD for onward tickets etc. OS would arrange for getting the tour advance from cashier also by sending an attendant who would bring the voucher for signing.

In Baroda all these were to be done by individuals. Ticket booking was through P&A, who would contact Tradewings. 

In those days Baroda was a costly city and most of the entitlements of BHEL were very low. House rents were high and we had to shell out sizeable amount from salary. For me it was a shock of about Rs 200 per month. Nearly 20% of salary. For the persons who had come from site it was a major shock. They had lost site allowance and other benefits plus this rental amount was to be paid. In site housing was free. Everyone used to grudge this loss. Pradip Nair didn't have any furniture, so he had taken furniture on rent. This was very surprising.

BNS Moorthy and Rajamani would be always talking about their site experience and how they prevented someone from giving benefit to contractor. It was surprising that everyone  in Baroda office was boasting about himself and never appreciating others.

We had Mr Tripathi as accountant for establishment payment. He was old and dedicated person. He was quite useful, he would come to your seat and inform about deficiencies in your claim. He would also suggest ways to connect the bill so that it can be paid. Everyone except Rajamani had good relation with Mr Tripathi. Rajamani was proud to be an executive and would like to assert that fact. He won't treat Mr Tripathi well. As a result his bills would land in trouble. Once he travelled by Navjivan express from Baroda to Chennai on LTC as it was a direct train. His claim was disallowed, and he was shown the rule that said 'Shortest route' which was via Mumbai. No other person was affected by this logic.

The existence of Baroda office was intriguing. There was no hotline connection to any plant or office of BHEL. It was out of loop for most of the decisions. We were dependent on information by post. Most of the information used to be old and SM HQ were better informed. This confusion continued even after Nagpur office was established and Baroda was relegated to secondary role.

To make up the financial loss, it was necessary to go on tour. There were many persons in Baroda who used to come to Baroda to fill claims and take next advance. For persons dealing projects in Ahmedabad and Wanakbori, it was expected that they would go in the morning and return back by evening. Connectivity with Wanakbori was by Bus only. Other alternative was to go by company car or taxi arranged by company. For this the rule was made that vehicle would be arranged if four persons travel. Rajamani never wanted to go by bus. He had even brought a tour claim from New Delhi which was one A4 paper printed on both sides as against normal A3 size paper in four parts. Every week would start asking people who had work in site. 

There were many like Shantaram, Sodha, PHK and others who were interested. Modus Operandi was simple, one had to be away from Baroda for 13 hours to get 1 day DA. Leave in the morning go to site, do your work, have evening snacks and start return journey. We used to call it Wanakbori express.

Most of the staff would go out to a tea stall twice in the day. That was also a new experience. I was introduced to the concept of Padiki in Baroda, which called kharra in Nagpur. It was surprising to see people coming to the shop and collecting their bundles of Padiki from the pan shop. The shop was run by two brothers, now they have a big shop in front of Welcome hotel.

It was a good initiation in the site working where everyone contributes in the success of project.