Train 18 memoirs: ICF starts breaking new grounds

Thanks to the simple measures we had started to institute, ICF had started to break new grounds. Decisions were simple and the action for implementation quick. Very affirmative and complimentary results started showing soon.

I will detail various other measures as they fit in at the right time in this Train 18 story. It helped that IR GMs were empowered in recent years like no other business-head in India. I know the extent of utilization of these powers met sloth and reluctance in many zones and PUs but at ICF we exploited it to the hilt. Our willingness to apply it, nay appropriate it, if I may say so, without fear or favour, became the hallmark of our working.

Production

Let us talk about production which, Trivedi had warned me, was my distant domain.  The production level kept rising and when we closed with 2277 coaches in 16-17, we believed that we had become the biggest coach factory in the world, surpassing the biggest Chinese factory. The data from China is never very transparent and there were doubts about our claim. Subsequently, we manufactured 2503 coaches in 17-18 and that settled all doubts. We planned about 3350 coaches in 18-19 and closed at 3262; I understand partially because ICF deliberated stored coaches for the next financial year and slowed down the turn out. In the current year, that is, 19-20, ICF has surpassed the 4000 mark.

This growth in production was achieved in spite of vigorous reduction in the number of staff. I had stubbornly put a stop to new induction immediately after joining. Other than the sackings, we also actively encouraged voluntary retirements and saw to it that such cases moved fast. Whereas we had close to 12000 workers in early 2016, we would be tearing down to near 10000 in Dec 2018. The number of staff per coach came tumbling down close to three from nearly six merely three years earlier.

Now, one may ask whether reduction of staff strength was indeed reason of increasing production. And I would say, yes. The reason of this astounding growth were many but mainly three 1) transition to a more willing and committed work force 2) various managerial and technical measures to increase productivity, which were imaginatively championed by D.P.Dash, Chief Electrical Engineer/QA, Shashi Bhusan, Chief Workshop Engineer/Shell and Manish Pradhan, Chief Workshop Engineer/Furnishing under close guidance of Trivedi and 3) liberal outsourcing in non-core areas, it being known that the output of contract workers was higher than the regular employees, although their quality of work was inferior. To that extent, one must agree with Shakespeare’s wisdom as spoken in Julius Caesar that, “Too many cooks spoil the broth”.

Did the unions not resist it? Did they not blame you that me that I had stopped induction and gone for whole scale outsourcing? Of course they did. But my simple logic to them was that they should look after the staff already on role and I was there to give all support but not bother about people who were totally chimeral and illusory. I would always placate them by stressing that the birds in hand were there to be nurtured but the birds in the bush were unseen and unknown; all of us had no say in which bird would get in if the gates were opened. (background: induction of staff in IR has been made pretty transparent and it is not possible to manipulate recruitment)

Someone in exasperation had once said long back about the political scene in India:

Barbaad    gulistan  karne  ko  bas   ek  chughad  hi  kaafi  tha,

Har shakh pe chughada  baitha hai anjam-e-gulistan kya hoga

(An owl alone spoils a garden; with owls perching all over, what would the garden be like?)

But the ICF experience was far luckier and I could make the existing employees feel good by modifying this:

Abaad  gulistan   karne  ko  bas  chand  gul hi  kaafi   the,

Har shakh pe gul hi gul hain to, husn-e-gulistan kya hoga

(A few flowers make a garden beauteous; with all the plants flowering, how beautiful it would be?)

Environment and Greenery

The premises of ICF have always been reasonably green but with time, it had regressed into a desolate and unclean look. Things turned to worse when cyclone Vardha swept Tamil Nadu in December 2016, leaving behind a trail of devastation. Our campus was also badly affected with nearly five thousand trees destroyed, either uprooted or shorn, bereft of green branches, completely laying to waste our flora nurtured over six decades. Imagine waking up one calm morning, after a frightful and bothersome evening spanning its malicious designs of sound and fury well into the night, only to discover that a lot from everything you always saw as permanent had been destroyed. The trees that you had assumed to be perennial were gone. Not gone really, but lying on the ground like some hideous cadavers. The roads were not roads anymore but mere circuitous passageways through a series of crypts of trees and greenery. There was no escaping a deep sense of distress and depression. We saw old people crying and children standing bewildered in the aftermath.

As the feeling of this great loss subsided a bit, we saw many talking passionately of revival and resurgence. When the going gets tough, the tough get going and thus began a new chapter in the greening of ICF. With the passion to revive greenery also came the resolve to do everything possible to make ICF environment-friendly. We had so many barren tracts of land. We had the means. But it took this natural calamity to shake us out of our stupor.

I ordered resurrection work on an unprecedented scale. I was intrigued, and more than that, elated to see a large number of our factory staff taking to active roles in revival of trees and greenery. I merely joined the bandwagon, so to say, and the rest is history.

Dash was spearheading many such efforts to turn ICF green. One of the prime measures included planting of trees, and since we were in a hurry, not just saplings but 8 to 12 ft high half-grown trees. I also had a novel idea to kill two birds with one stone; achieve the objective of extensive greening and its maintenance and winning over a senior staff member and how? Covert all barren patches into vanams (groves) and name them after the senior-most residents of the colony in question. We made more than fifteen such vanams covering all the vacant and unclean areas.

Mahalingam Grove, 1st of the 15 green patches named after senior staff

Simultaneously, many initiatives towards energy-efficiency were launched, like complete switch-over to LED lights, incorporation of various energy-efficient equipment, attachments and controls, Bio-waste plants, awareness campaigns and great stress on installation of renewable energy sources like wind mills and solar installations were taken up.

And then the story of the lake. Some months after joining ICF, I discovered that we had a lake which was hidden by ugly wild growth and stank to high heaven. I was told that it was a reservoir for raw water. “Reservoir? It was certainly once a beautiful lake which you people have decimated. We are going to revive this dying lake, come what may”, I remember exclaiming. One of the accompanying engineers said, “Sir, I have seen migratory birds visit this water body some decades back. They don’t come any more to this squalid water”. “Sure they would not, dear friend, why would they?”, I blurted, even as these words of Afzal Khan rang in my ears:

Dalan mein sabza hai na talab mein paani

Kyun  koi  parinda   meri  deewar  pe  utre

(My atrium is devoid of any greenery and my lake is bereft of water, why should a feathered creature descend at my place?)

Uncontrolled growth of green wild vegetation around had hidden the lake from public view; the lake, in any case, was an ugly sight with algae and foul-smelling suspension. 

A dirty smelly reservoir rejuvenated into a living thriving lake

Restoring the lake to its old glory posed a challenge but I was determined to rejuvenate this lake. Thankfully, a group of nature-lovers from ICF rolled up, determined to enliven it. In the course of the next two years or so, some incredible work was done. We soon had a lake front visible to a visitor to ICF, with clear odourless water, a lake-view park, a jetty with boats, a pathway around it, special lighting and so on. It became a picnic spot. And not for humans alone, migratory pelican started visiting the lake. The participative work done for restoring the magnificence of this lake deserves to be chronicled separately in a memoir and let me see how much more I can cover it in this book.

With an increase in expenditure of less than 10%, we revamped the waste management system of ICF; Integrated waste management regime for the entire premises, including factories and colonies with source segregation, collection and disposal and very little being sent to landfill. Although built ages ago, old and somewhat dilapidated, our campus became one of the cleanest in Chennai

On some Cleanliness Day or some such tamasha, all GMs of IR were required to conduct a drive and upload photos in a nominated site for onward transmission to the PMO. All GMs would gather with an army of underlings holding long-handle brooms and sweep. Sweep what? Some garbage spread out for them? Modi ji’s noble intention had been distorted into a farce by IR officers. It was fun watching these pictures of officers sweeping over one another. Did Ghalib anticipate the stupidity and insipidity that would inflict us:

Jahan tera naqsh-e-qadam dekhte hain

Khyaaban  khyaaban erum dekhte hain

Bana kar faqeeron ka hum bhes Ghalib

Tamasha-e-ahl-e-karam    dekhte   hain

(In impression of your presence, I see the heavens. In a beggar's guise, Ghalib, I observe the spectacle of those worthies whose job it is to dispense favours)

I simply wrote there that I could not upload any picture as I had nothing to sweep in ICF and added the above couplet. I became very unpopular among peers and some of them typecast me as a pretentious boor whereas all I wanted to do was to convey, with some sarcasm, the futility of the exercise.

Integrated waste management in ICF with landfill refuge resduced to 10%

ICF soon became the only Carbon-Negative unit on IR, consuming some 12 MW of power against 12.5 MW generation from renewable sources. A rare distinction for a  factory. We also obtained Gold rating from CII’s GreenCo rating system, the only manufacturing unit of IR to be so awarded.

As I said, apart from the revival of the lake, all these greening efforts required a separate account. A good case study has been done by Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata. I have also co-authored a book, with Dash, covering all the aspects of our efforts and successes in a coffee-table book titled, “Greening of a factory, Verdant makeover of Integral Coach Factory and its habitat”

A proud and happy Team ICF when we achieved Carbon Negativity

Empowerment of women

“Frailty thy name is man if you attribute any frailty to women”, Mr. Hamlet. Fraility, thy name was never women, neither then nor now, but frailty of man’s mind tried to give it this name. I firmly believe that any organization which does not treat men and women equally, and unequivocally so, is not going anywhere. That also means zero tolerance towards any major gender-based harassment, misdemeanour or transgression, sexual or otherwise. Within days of my joining ICF, a senior officer told me casually of a case; an employee got drunk and barged into the hostel room of two female employees and tried to molest one of them. He escaped and no disciplinary case was built up as there was lackadaisical follow up and the women themselves withdrew the complaint. I blew a fuse and started shouting. Those around me could not fathom what the commotion was about. Within minutes I was cooped up with Mohan Raja and his officers. We decided that Mohan Raja would determine, informally, whether the incident was true and if found true, the delinquent employee would be sacked by the evening. If this was not a fit case to take action without an enquiry, which other case would be so? The order for dismissal was ready by the evening just as an officer remarked that this employee also had a family to feed. “Indeed, Mr. Merciful. Make me the Chief Justice of ICF and I would look into that. For the present, please go and sack him”.

There were four such major incidents in the course of the next year and we dealt all of them similarly. Once we were sure that the complaint was genuine, we would not subject the complainant to any embarrassment of enquiries and testimony, we would simply show the accused the door within a day. In case of minor offences of the nature, steps like shaming and removing the accused from the work area in question was the norm. That settled it and the message was through. Incidentally, there was also a case of false allegation with a shirker woman employee trying to settle a score; after the informal probe, the woman employee was relegated to a tougher job with strict regime of compliance.

On the other hand, women were encouraged to challenge themselves in respect of their output vis-à-vis men and many accepted the challenge. From mere helpers and supporters in jobs they were actually skilled in, they sought to become lead technicians. We found more than twenty exclusive gangs of women generating an output equal or better than me. These gangs were called Mahila Shakthi groups  Where else in any industry in India would you see a group of 30 women, welders and fitters, doing the heavy fabrication job of manufacturing a coach shell on their own?

The heavy fabrication Mahila Shakti gang building a coach shell and the signature photo of the gang

The pride these women workers felt in their redefined roles of doers and not helpers was palpable in one of these photographs which became a favourite of the newspapers and electronic media in Chennai. Rethink, Shriman Poet Jai Shankar Prasad ji, “Nari tum kewal shraddha nahin ho, aur bahut kuchh ho.” (O woman, you are not just faith but so much more.)

Visual Art as a Motivational Tool

I have always experimented with art and railways as Picasso has said that “art washes from your soul the dust of everyday life.” It exhilarates, intrigues, illuminates, uplifts and above all it motivates. In a span of nearly a decade, there have been a multitude of changes in my life’s journey, eventful and immensely exhilarating, but my experiments with art have helped me transition from a dry railway engineer to a plebe visual art curator. And how? Let me start with a cliché, oft repeated by us. IR has always been an unintended fountainhead of art and culture, reflecting the unique heritage and multi-cultural ethos of our country. I, with some colleagues, had started the art movement, Safar (Support and Appreciation for Art and Railways), in the year 2011, at Bangalore. Looking at its success and appeal among railway men and travelling public alike, I put my heart into its proliferation in all railway fields and purlieus, including industrial settings like, the Rail Wheel factory, Bangalore, where I was posted on return from Germany.

I have put together all my experiences in coffee-table books on railways and art. I have written four of them, with the third and fourth books on the art-related journey in ICF, titled, ‘A skein of trains, recounting a Chennai story’ and ‘Trains unchained, the continuing saga of art and railways, the Safar’. The beauty of these books lies mainly in the pictures and the graphics of the art work and not so much in the text I wrote. I have since made a caper from a pidgin writer of books on art to a novice curator. But that is not important here.

An art gallery in a factory or a factory in art gallery

What is important is that continuing this experiment in ICF was not only facile but, as it turned out, the most satisfying as I got immense support from ICF staff as wall as the professional artists of Tamil Nadu. I extended the spirit of Safar and encouraged artistic creativity. Conversion of metal and non-metal factory scrap into works of art sent a strong message of conservation. As for the underlying intention of generating motivation and a spirit of teamwork, I am sure we succeeded but I would let the artworks speak for themselves. Yes, thank you, janab Arman Sarwar, for writing this for us:

Ye moajiza bhi dekha hamne kamal-e-fan ka,

Chup   ho  agar  musavvir,   taswir  bolti  hai

(We observed this magic of the excellence of art, the creator may be silent but the picture speaks)

What with murals and sculptures from metal scrap, soon the factory looked like an art gallery and some people remarked that it was a like factory in an art gallery. Perhaps the only factory in India which has visual art, both murals and sculptures, melding with the industrial installations in the factory and other parts of the premises in a very striking and stirring manner. Having embellished our premises gloriously, we also gifted huge sculptures to the city, adorning both the avenues passing through ICF premises, a feast for the eyes of city's daily commuters. 

Sculpture made out of metal and non-metal scrap for ICF and the city

Infrastructure for social gathering, physical fitness and Sports

As described earlier, considerable work was done to provide urban green space for health and wellbeing. This had to be supplemented with sporting facilities and infrastructure for physical well being of the employees and their families. It would facilitate direct health benefits by providing residents spaces for physical activity as well as social interaction for psychological restoration. A healthy employee is naturally a great asset for the organization and the society. Sports and recreation facilities for staff were been revamped and newly developed with a new gymnasium and remodelled library in ICF Institute, renovation of play grounds, parks and mini gymnasiums in all staff colonies, renovated welfare centres in all colonies, four synthetic basket ball courts, five volleyball courts, more than ten tennis courts, including five synthetic ones, three indoor badminton courts and so on.

Strong and significant linkages exist among pleasing greenery in public spaces along with well-kept physical activity centres, such as playgrounds and tracks, and physical well being of the users and residents. Evidence suggests that improvement in greenery and play-spaces is associated with decline in stress among adults and adolescents and improvements in depressive symptoms. I believed that provision of green sporting facilities and novel infrastructure for social interaction would yield consistent positive results among residents of ICF.

Raising funds for such large-scale infrastructure development is not a problem for a GM of IR. I had stipulated that 1% of all estimates would be kept earmarked for staff amenities and therefore money was never a problem for a unit with annual turnover nearing Rs 10000 crores. This in addition to provision of green spaces with walking paths, shade, water features, irrigated lawns. We hit the bull’s eye with the concept of Figure of 8 Acupressure Parks which became a hit with ladies; by the end of 2018 we had more than fifteen such facilities. Rundown public open spaces may often be associated with unsavory activities, such as illegal gambling, homelessness, and prostitution, as well as crime and vandalism. With development of facilities, possibility of such activities were obviated.

Best Sports facilities in Chennai within two years

When we finally got the swimming pool for the staff inaugurated in Dec 2018, incidentally a long-standing demand, the ICF campus was no longer a coach factory premises. It boasted of the best sporting facilities in the city with only the second flood-lit cricket ground, only the second flood-lit astro-turf hockey ground and the best air-conditioned indoor stadium of Chennai. The world-class sporting facilities remain unmatched by any other IR unit or any organization in the city of Chennai. There we were, we also made coaches.

Physical activities for families for physical & psychological rejuvenation

No more, more of the same

I had primed the ICF officers, supervisors and staff that we had to break free from the shackles of more of the same to make, untie the stranglehold of pessimistic thinking and design and build coaches with new technical features, and particularly, better look, aesthetics and identity. I knew we had to take baby steps and advance gradually to newer products. We had to leverage impressive product line of ICF, covering all types of regular, special purpose and self-propelled coaches and the only unit entrusted consistently with a wide expanse of export umbrella.

Numerous improvements were made in coaches to make them more maintenance-friendly, passenger-friendly, durable and energy-efficient. At the same time we transcended the boundaries of exteriors that IR was used to for decades; the coaches and trains turned out by ICF acquired welcome new looks. The type of coaches which were administered a new get up and livery, inter alia, included, non-AC LHB type coaches with wide windows, AC LHB type coaches with continuous windows, Kolkata Metro rakes with 3-phase electrics, AC EMUs and MEMUs with under slung 3-phase electrics, best in class DEMUs, Tejas rakes with unique stamp of ICF, Vista dome tourist coaches, Self-propelled inspection cars, Diesel-electric tower cars, DEMUs exported to Sri Lanka and many others. Every time a new look coach or rake was launched, ICF not only reaffirmed and demonstrated its capability across a range of trains, it was also, unconsciously, declared to the world that something even better could well be in the offing.

A picture speaks a thousand words so I present this new more but not the same ethos of ICF in simple pictures.

No more, more of the same

Exterior beauty is indeed important, Maám Helena of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s dream, and Love looks first with the eyes and later with the mind! (The linkage of love to eyesight and vision are is very vital in this play about love and the confusion it can bring about.)

You must be wondering as to when the story of Train 18 would start. The problem is that the story is not a straightforward one with characters, setting, plot, conflict and resolution but one which unfolded over a long time. A story which became actually became a story gradually and its real appeal dawned only towards the end in making of Train 18. There are no daily diary accounts and the narrator has to enmesh so many stories into one skein, hoping that the reader does not lose the thread and interest. I hope you understand if borrow from the poet Tajzeeb Haafi:

Dastan  main hoon ik  taveel magar

Tu  jo sun le to mukhtsar bhi hoon

(I am a long story but it could be very brief if I have your ears)

At this stage, and having said that, let me simply list out some more firsts and unique creations and move on:

·   Upgraded shop floor facilities, providing pleasant work-environment; best on IR

· Transformation of the staid Regional rail Museum into Chennai Rail Museum, rated by many agencies as one of the best in the city, boasting of a 90-seater ultra-modern mini theatre, an amphitheatre, a cultural centre, an artificial water body, an art gallery, a Green gallery and so on.

·    Best self-sustaining community and marriage halls, institutes and clubs on IR; four air-conditioned community halls with attractive LED lighting and signages, a modernized hospital,

·      Improved facades of all offices matching corporate offices etc.

·   The only industrial unit of IR to implement Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) in a purposeful way leading to improved efficiencies

·   Powerful apps and online applications for vendors, customers and staff  (HRD)

·    Five model staff colonies with upgraded common facilities not equalled by any other unit of IR

·   Only unit of IR to run six modernized schools not merely for the benefit of ICF employees but the city as a whole, including a school for the underprivileged children.

The changes in ICF were like cannonballs with the underlying missive that, “if there is a will, there is a way”. Sounds rather trite, lacking in freshness, but very effective all the same. This is the reason that before elaborating on the Train -18 project, it was important to look at the milestones ICF was reaching in parallel to the crowning glory of Train 18. Most of these achievements needed a straight-thinking, goal-oriented mindset that team ICF was able to inculcate among its members.

Remember what Maxwell said, “Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team.” I perhaps had some vision but without this great team I would have come a cropper.

(to be continued...)