Chandrika Sen: Afcons Infrastructure Ltd
Let me take you to Bhutan. It’s not a bad an idea, considering it’s among the handful of countries that have been able to keep Covid-19 cases low while the rest of the world struggled with skyrocketing numbers for many months.
Around March of 2020, as the virus tightened its noose around the world, the government of Bhutan introduced the highest level of preventive measures that a country can take, including closure of borders. Afconians, as we call ourselves at Afcons, have been part of this beautiful country for little over a year now. In 2019, we started building one of the country’s major urban development projects in the town of Phuentsholing, very close to the Amo Chu River and the India-Bhutan border. Pre-lockdown, it was work as usual for Afconians.
But in March, closure of borders meant evacuating thousands of people living along the river while simultaneously building new homes for them. Given the scale of the activity and a fast-ticking clock, this seemed like an impossible task. Housing is not about speed. It’s about stability, especially in earthquake prone areas. There was a moment when we thought that all of our hard work might come to nothing, where all the time and attention to detail would be swept away as the virus swept in.
That’s where our Extreme Engineers stepped in. The Afcons team joined hands with the Bhutan Army and other authorities to first wire-fence the border, barring all un-authorized entries. One engineer and five workmen were deployed at the site round-the-clock, along with close to 1200 Royal Bhutan Army personnel. Our expertise helped expedite the process of building homes for about 1,000 families in the span of a few weeks.
Given the circumstances, this wasn’t enough, so our Project Manager, Mr. R Ravichandran, volunteered to have borewells constructed to ensure uninterrupted water supply. We shared safety jackets, masks, thermal scanners, and even meals, with all the stakeholders involved in this unprecedented activity, perhaps the first in the country in such a tight period of time. When the team saw families moving into the shelters, we couldn’t have felt prouder.
For more than six decades, we’ve been creating engineering marvels in places where others fear to tread—or at least where their insurance policies won’t permit them. From the world’s highest motorable tunnel 3000 metres above sea level below the Rohtang Pass in Himachal, to the world’s tallest single arch railway bridge, our Extreme Engineers make everything possible.
Therefore, as Covid-19 spread, Afconians across the world hit the streets in service of those rendered helpless during this crisis. We have stepped out of our comfort zones, ensuring every precaution, to alleviate the misery and pain brought by the virus. In Africa, our teams are working relentlessly with local authorities in over ten countries to support people in distress. In Lusaka, our teams have shared food and sanitation items with more than 5,000 families during the Covid crisis. They are the same men and women who are building the country’s most modern road network to this date, and they won’t rest until this crisis is mitigated.
Along the Tema-Mpakadan Railway Project corridor in Ghana, Afconians have joined hands with the regional assemblies to carry out ration distribution drives. Similar initiatives have been undertaken in Mauritania and Ivory Coast, and our efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. We have been appreciated by the highest authorities of those nations for our dedicated efforts towards our projects.
We also have plenty going on back here at home. Our Extreme Engineers are extending support to essential services workers, police, government groups, and village panchayats. Our team members from the Kolkata Metro Project, who are successfully beating the virus, responded to the call of the West Bengal government and donated blood for plasma therapy. At the same time, they successfully built India’s deepest ventilation shaft for metro preparation.
This crisis is a massive one, one of the most significant in world history, and something that’s devastating communities. But at Afcons, we don’t choose between safety and development. We’re demonstrating that we can continue to build smartly, humanely, and strategically to increase quality of life even in situations where it seems impossible. The impossible is what we do, and what we’ll keep doing every single day.