“Break-neck speed.” Ever thought this phrase could be applied with reference to a piece of work undertaken by a government in India?
It can be after March 13, 2010, the day that re-defines the pace at which a government can deliver a project. The new, mammoth Tamil Nadu Assembly complex stands testimony to this.
Time and cost overruns are nothing new to government projects. From power stations to ordinary buildings to roads and bridges, the government just does not deliver anything ever in time — that used to the perception.
So how did this happen? No, there was no miracle or miracle-maker. Just an octogenarian Chief Minister, who would not take ‘no' for an answer, and a set of people who left family and rest behind and worked as if their lives depended on the completion of the complex.
With a task-master in the form of Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, and a team of officials headed by Chief Secretary K.S. Sripathi and Public Works Department Secretary S. Ramasundaram, close to 5,000 persons worked on the project to complete a built up area of 87,058 square metres in record time.
It was exactly one year after the present DMK government came to power in 2006 that the decision to construct a new complex for the Assembly was taken. The very next month Mr. Karunanidhi laid the foundation stone, and the then PWD Minister, Durai Murugan, declared that he would have the place ready for the Finance Minister to present the State Budget for 2010-2011.
That declaration was in June 2008. Then came the court cases. First, over the relocation of a school on the Omandurar Government Estate campus, the site for the new building, and then, over the relocation of a temple. A few months were lost in the process. Finally, the land was formally handed over to the contractors, ECCI, five months later.
Work commenced in November 2008. There were problems at each stage, which had to be addressed. The remarkable speed with which 87,058 square metres of built-up area rising to seven floors is heading for completion is impressive.
Says Mr. Ramasundaram: “The challenge of coordinating and making sure that a labour force of more than 4,000 people worked diligently and adhered to schedules was huge. Adopting innovative technologies, careful project management, persistent reviews to sort out issues and the Chief Minister's personal involvement has delivered the results.”
Starting from the work on the foundation, advanced techniques have been used. Piling was done using the rotary piling method where four piles are done in a day against one that is possible through conventional methods. There were problems here too. Piling had to be done deeper since the initial estimates of requirement seemed a little off the mark. That meant more delays for the beginning of the work on the super-structure.
Because of the size of the building, large beams with enormous reinforcement were required, but by using post-tensioned slabs, the beam sizes and quantity of steel required were reduced. Because of this, the time required between casting two slabs was also reduced to 10 days from 21 days. Many such acceptable shortcuts were used.
The façade — a combination of structural glazing (of about 20,000 sq m) plus sapphire blue granite cladding (spread over 10,000 sq m) — had to also be held in a structurally stable manner. Reinforced concrete walls were built all around the structure. These concrete walls came up in double-quick time because it used a plastic formwork system which can be easily assembled.
Part of the Secretariat is located at the site on the estate where an oil expeller had been kept alongside an old building, The oil expeller was kept there as a symbol of the suffering of the people during the freedom struggle. V.O. Chidambaram Pillai (1872-1936), one of the luminaries of the national movement during the pre-Gandhi era, was made to operate it when he was imprisoned at the Coimbatore Central Jail. Thirty six years ago, the oil expeller was found buried in Coimbatore and brought to Chennai for display on the estate. In the late 1990s, the oil expeller was removed to the Gandhi Mantapam complex.
