Situational Problems of FSTPP :

The project faced various right from the day one, when the activities pertaining to land acquisition were started. The site selected for installation of this Project is located on the right bank of Feeder Canal of Farakka Barrage Project, in the border district of Murshidabad (WB). It is also vulnerable location because of its proximity to Bangladesh border and to the Advasi districts of Sahibganj and Godda of Bihar state. The coal is to be quaried from Rajmahal coalfields in Bihar which is located at approx. 75 kms. From the project site. The circuit length of Merry-Go-Round (MGR) systems adopted at other pit-head stations are approx.7 to 10 kilometers long but in this case, it is no longer a MGR system, but it is a mini-railway system covering a total route length of approx. 90 kms. As if these constraints were not enough, permanent township for housing the employees is located 14 kms. Away across the Farakka Barrage in Malda district. The total stretch of the project, starting from its permanent township and upto the coal loading point at Rajmahal is about 100 kms. This is the only NTPC station whose operation is spread over such a large area. All the other stations of NTPC are planned for an integrated layout close to the coal mines.
Problems in Land Acquisition:-
Serious difficulties were faced during the stage of land acquisition in the year 1979-1981. The main problem of land acquisition was that there were excessively large number of land holders due to very small size of land holdings - sometime to the extent of 1/10 acre only. Not only the sizes of the plots was a problem, but establishing the ownership as per land records itself was quite a task as land consolidation and revenue records updating had not been done. This resulted in large number of land oustees numbering about 8,900 in West Bengal and about 3,000 in Bihar and also a long drawn process of land acquisition which is incomplete even today. Such large number of land oustees/ land affected people is not having any precedent anywhere in the country - the total land acquired and the acre-wise details are given in Annexure-2.II. Also figure for other NTPC projects are indicated for comparison purpose.
Political Scenario:
Another factor which needs to be kept in view, at this juncture, is the political scenario in the State at that point of time. The CPI(M) party was swept into power in the year 1977 after a long struggle against Congress. Congress had not fully recovered the defeat in election and they were, therefore, trying to retain their political image through the Trade Unions, whereas CPI (M) sponsored Union, CITU was trying to establish its new found strength. Bitter rivalries between these two major Unions were prevailing throughout the industrial belt of the State. The consequence was that both these Unions were trying their best to take hold of this project in the beginning stages itself so that they could derive maximum benefits. The rivalry between two Unions had seriously affected the work - nothing could move properly without the intervention of the Unions. The construction agencies which had come from other States had no experience of handling such highly unionized labour force and found it extremely difficult to work. Added to that, were the expectations of the local work-force including land outsees which naturally expected a
large share of work to go to them although they did not possess adequate skill and qualification for taking up complicated and high technical erection work of a thermal power station.
Farakka Factor:
Thus, no work could be carried out smoothly, in a planned manner because of the following problems:
- Inter-union-rivalries-resentment amongst the local workforce against the outside labour.
- Lack of industrial culture.
- Large number of population living below the poverty line. To depict the scenario, a phrase was coined as "Farakka Factor" indicator of "Non-performance". Gradually this "Factor" became known in construction industry within and without the state and as a result a number of reputed construction and erection agencies avoided taking up any job for this project. This "factor" created an image of a very difficult site prone to labour problem, harrasement of construction agencies, low productivity, persistent law and order problem resulting in costly delays in project execution. "Farakka Factor" became so well known throughout the power industry that the engineers and other staff of construction agencies tried to avoid their posting to this project. Even NTPC employees very reluctantly accepted posting to this project. The result was that high level managerial talent and skilled work force which is essential for execution of such large sized capital intensive project could not be put together in time. This "Brain Blockage" seriously hampered/affected the efficiency in work.
Vicious Circle :
Once the work culture/atmosphere of a project or for that matter any organisation is spoiled, it becomes prone to exploitation by vested interest both inside and outside the organisation. In such a situation, a handful of people gain the unaurthorisated /illegal control of the organisation. Such control by the outside vested interest strangles the management and bleeds the organisation to death. As a result of such interference/exploitation the management, which had the right and responsibility to run the organisation, conveniently passed the blame to the outside forces thereby shirking its responsibility. A vicious circle had developed where the management, blamed the workmen and workmen blamed the management and so it went on. The ultimate sufferer was the project. This complicated situation grew over the years and continued to seriously affect the performance of the project in all the areas.
Scenario in October, 1990 :
I heard a lot about this project and also knew about the reluctance of the senior executives in the company to head this project. Reluctance was so much that since the first posting of a Chief Construction Manager in 1979, eleven Projects Heads had been changed some of them tried to manage this Project from Delhi or Calcutta and one of them had stayed here only for few weeks. For organizational reasons I was asked to take up this project which I accepted as the challenge of my career. I took over charge on 12-10-1990. During the first few days, while going round the project under construction, generating station, townships, hospitals, schools etc., it was revealed that almost everything was in a complicated mess. In order to give some idea to the reader, of the damage caused so far, some details are given below :
Construction Labour :
Entire construction labour was unionized and construction area was divided union-wise; conventionally speaking a power house is divided into areas such as main power house, offsite plant, coal handling plant etc. but here it was identified union-wise i.e which union holds the power in certain area or cluster of areas. During my first few days at the project, everything I saw was appeared to be disorderly fashion. On many days returning to my office after lunch, I had seen long procession of construction labour leaving the project site on bi-cycles carrying different flags on different days. On enquiry, it was learnt that these workers left their site for attending some political party's meeting of one union or the other. Naturally all of them did not to go to the meeting, but all of them did leave the site resulting in stoppage of work. This situation was such that the contracting agencies could not take any action against them nor they could force the law of the land, if some one did object, he was 'taken care of'by the local toughs. Practically no protection or security was available to the contracting agencies and they had no option but to succumb to the pressure tactics.
IR Problems :
Inside the Power Station the situation was grave. The work was being done at the will and pleasure of the construction workers rather than construction plan of the project authorities. Practically speaking, the contractors and NTPC both had no say and control over the Project construction schedule. Some major problems which were affecting the progress of work are listed below:
1. No contractor could increase/decrease the number of work are listed below: without the consent of the Unions.
2. There was a practice of 'gang overtime' - either all the workmen will stay for 'overtime' or nobody will stay.
3. If the contractor could not pay wages on the fixed pay-day, he has to pay eight hours 'overtime' for every day of delay in payment.
4. Most of the small contractors were forced to keep 'Chowkidars'existed only on paper. Infact, this is the protection money the contractors must pay in order to work and survive. On the slightest deviation from the above practices, the contractors were gheraoed, humiliated and physically assaulted or beaten up. In one incident in 1991, a senior official of a reputed private company was looked up in his office chamber and chilli powder was burnt inside the room. Timely intervention of NTPC and CISF officials saved the life of the executive who was about 55 years of age. This sort of behaviour by the unionized workers created an atmosphere of fear, with the result that no self-respecting individual could work with some degree of mental peace which is essential for carrying out such massive construction works.
Work Culture :
In addition to the above mal-practices what was even more harmful was the absolute lack of work culture. Daily schedule on most of the construction workers was like this:
- Arrival at site one hour late i.e. instead of 8:00 AM they reached the work spots by 9:00 AM or later.
- After drawing the tools etc. they actually started the work by 9:30 AM.
- Come out from work spot and reach tea stall by 10:00 AM.
- Return to work spot by 11:00 AM.
- After working for about 45 minutes, proceed for lunch by 11:45 AM.
- Take rest up to 1:30 PM against allotted half of an hour for lunch.
- Return to the tea stalls by 3:00 Clock.
- Resumed wok by 3:45 PM/4 0' Clock.
- Left work spot by 5-55 latest.
It is quite clear that out of total 8 hours, actual work done was only about 2 hours. As a result, the productivity was very low. Generally speaking, throughout the country the average output of a erection worker of such large size thermal power plant is about 1.5 Tonne/Man-month. In some cases where the labour was highly militant, the productivity was as low as 0.5 Tonne/Man-month. How could a large sized project costing about Rs. 2,500.00 crores could be built on schedule?
Nature of Neighbourhood:
The condition in the townships was still worse: we have three townships in two districts (Please refer enclosed site plan at Annexure-3.I): Two townships - one called Temporary Township (TTS) and another called Field Hostel Complex(FHC) are situated close to the Plant in the district of Murshidabad. The third one which is called Permanent Township (PTS) - the main township is situated in the district of Malda 14kms. from the plant across the Farakka Barrage over the river Ganges. All these townships are adjacent to some villages or some local settlements. All these townships had decorative boundary walls constructed around them and legally the area is the private property of NTPC. But unfortunately, NTPC management could hardly do anything for protection of these townships. Everywhere the adjacent villagers had broken the boundary walls and were using these townships as suited them best. Most of the open ground was used by the villagers for their morning ritual and during the day they felt all their cattle in the township area. In PTS the existing ponds were used for their daily requirements - washing their clothes and taking bath etc. It seems that NTPC was existing at the 'mercy' were existing before constn. of townships and the villagers were still using them as per their requirements. Naturally there was no security for property and lives of NTPC employees. It was risky to come out with your family after sunset. Infact, people could not come from Railway station to these townships if the trains arrived at late hour of night.
Disturbance all around :
As is obvious from the above description of state-of-affairs in various activities of the Project, there was an atmosphere of chaos all around; i.e. construction sites, Operation & Maintenance area, in townships or surrounding environment everything appeared to be in a complicated mess. It was difficult to decide as to from where to start the restoration process. To add to the confusion, the Executive Association, a body of NTPC executives which has a central body called NEFI was on agitational path asking for early revision of pay scale and other related benefits. The whole scenario I have tried to explain in the enclosed sketch (refer Annexure 3.II) representing problems in various spheres of conflicts.
Technical Constraints :
Besides the inherent constraints of Farakka due to its location, frequent disturbance due to deterioration industrial relations, distressed land oustee agitations and other political related problems there were numerous technical constraints which were to be tackled.
Adverse weather and soil condition :
The problems faced is quite unique in its nature. The mon-soon stretched from May to September causing heavy loss of work time. The soil is very soft and would sink/collapse easily causing delay in construction activities. Especially the construction of MGR system which is stretching 85Kms. and passing through many villages and inaccessible areas, had become extremely difficult.
Approach to FSTPP :
The power plant is situated on the right bank of the Feeder Canal and the main highway is passing on the side of left bank. These two banks are connected by a single lane low height steel structured bridge. Due to this, the heavy equipment and any odd shaped equipment cannot pass through this bridge and total transportation is heavily dependent on rail which is a time consuming mode of transportation.
Operational Constraints:
Besides the problems in construction/erection of work of Stage-II, there were numerous operational constraints of highly technical nature, prevailing in Stage-I running Units. Since these are purely of technical nature these are not discussed in detail in this report. There were number of technical deficiencies in coal handling system, milling system, ash handling system and numerous other mechanical, electrical and C&I sub systems. Because of these problems faced in day to day operation the morale of the employees was at low as resulting in total loss of confidence and all were in a state of mind that Farakka station can never generate power at rated capacity. All these difficulties pushed Farakka station to a point of no return and was written off and termed as liability to the Corporation. Reviving from this stage of the level of NTPC's standard of performance is a man-month task for any Chief Executive.
Resolution:
Hence, there was so much to do in almost all spheres of activities, to ensure the peaceful existence of NTPC at this place dedicated team was needed to initiate 'Priority' actions because nothing can wait. A 'Blue Print' of the action plan for achieving these objectives had to be drawn without any loss of further time. But something has to come first and task was assembling of a motivated team, which opened up the gates for reviving and restoring the lost image of NTPC, adopting a new management strategy.

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