3.18 Incident CA—17 accountable to Professional Challenge
The stormwater from the complex of Jorhat unit of Coca-Cola Ltd. was led to the roadside drain of NH 37 (now NH 715). Since the drain was encroached in the portion from the front of the plant to the outfall into a natural drain, the draining capacity got reduced substantially, causing thereby artificial flooding during the monsoon every year in the area in and around the plant area. I was entrusted with the task of preparing a project for solving this issue by the Coca-Cola management. A complete project was planned and designed at my end. Since, this included the construction of a R.C. drain along the encroached existing drain of the National Highway, the approval of the same by the concerned department of APWD NH Wing was an absolute necessity before its execution. On submission of the project to the NH Department, the necessary approval along with the required permission to the Coca-Cola Unit for its execution was duly accorded.
Since the project approved contained different components such as the drains and earthworks (filling & cutting) inside the complex, construction of drains outside the complex including the one by the side of NH 37, the works were allotted to different labour-contractors and all the works were supervised at my end. The challenges crept in during the period of executing the drain by the side of NH 37. The encroachers objected severely the clearing off the drain as per approved drawings. The help of the police had to be taken. A few persons were arrested and taken to the local Police Station for taking their written consent for grant of their no objection for the construction of the drain. There were some local politicians trying to stop the works. However, with a lot of efforts, the execution of the drain was completed as per design before the onset of the next monsoon. This drainage project, on its completion succeeded in checking the artificial flood caused by heavy rainfall to the great relief of the people of both the plant and surrounding areas.
The lesson learnt from this project was truly the reflection of the aspect of encroachment of drains irrespective of natural or man-made drains both in rural and urban areas contributing substantially to artificial flooding attributable to stormwater runoff (discussed in details in my book16).
3.19 Incident CA—18 accountable to Professional Challenge
This incident relates to the construction of a Gallery Block of the Jorhat Stadium in 1990s. Those days, Mr. Hiten Goswami, an MLA (even today) was a Minister of the then AGP Government of Assam. I was approached for taking up the responsibility of the structural design of the block appearing in Image 3.11 below. I agreed to take up the project subject to the approval of two conditions laid down in clear terms from my end. The conditions were—(a) I must be given the freedom to review the concept design already prepared by then, by a local architect for my structural design and (b) I must be given the responsibility of supervising the construction of the project. Eventually, these conditions were accepted by the Committee concerned and I was allotted the project. The two conditions (a) & (b) were imposed for the interest of the quality of the project both in design and execution.
On getting the assignment, the architectural drawings (concept drawings) already prepared by the local architect were handed over to me. A detailed study of those drawings reflected primarily two deficiencies—-one in respect of the line of sightfor the gallery provided in the first floor and other being the position of columns and heights of the three floors of the proposed block. Those deficiencies were rectified while finalising the structural arrangement with the due endorsement from the architect concerned.
There was a Construction Committee (CC) already in place to take care of the project with Minister H. Goswami as its President and with others as member. I, myself was a member in the capacity of the consultant taking responsibility of structural designer and supervisor of the construction works. The execution of all the civil works was allotted to a labour contractor, as approved by the CC. The materials were procured by the CC. The payments to different suppliers were made on the basis of the recommendations of the consultant (myself). A lot of disputes developed during the execution particularly with the suppliers of different materials in relation to my strict measurements of quantities supplied and qualities concerned. Naturally, my ways of verification of both quantities and qualities had to face tremendous pressures from different quarters of vested interests. I went on fighting different challenges created by some of the suppliers. By then, I got used to this type of challenges in construction activities and additionally developed the firm belief to the effect that one can fight this type of challenges only and only when one maintains one’s high degree of honesty and integrity. I kept on fighting and discharging my responsibilities with this firm belief in spite of many odds creating many a time the agony of mind. The one situation relating to this project, as described below could not be forgotten even today.
One day, a reporter of an esteemed Assamese Daily Newspaper came to my office chamber. After the initial introductory discussion was over, he stated—-I have come to you with an issue relating to the construction of the stadium block. I responded—-Does it relate to me as the consultant?He was prompt to reply—- Yes, it does, since you are the engineer responsible for supervising the construction. I encouraged him to raise the issue— Yes, you are perfectly right, I am responsible fully for all aspects of supervising the construction. I will be glad to listen to your issue, if it does relate to any aspect of construction. Then, he continued—– I have got a genuine information that the footings for six columns have been cast without the reinforcement, as conceived in the design. This statement from him gave me a sudden shock basically for the reason that I never used to give clearance for the casting of concrete before I checked the reinforcements and shuttering works. I kept quiet for a while and then reacted—Are you sure about your statement? He responded—-Oh, yes. I am sure. Then, I took out a sheet of my company’s letterhead and straightway stated to him—– Ok then, let us now enter into an agreement in black and white on this sheet of my company’s letter head. I will sign under my company’s seal and you will sign with your official designation. He quickly responded—-about what? Then I briefly explained about the intended contents of the proposed agreement—I will dig out the footings of all the six columns and break partly all the footings just to physically show you if the reinforcement-nets are there or not. If, reinforcements are not there, I am prepared to break all the columns at my cost and go for reconstruction at my cost. On the other hand, in case the required reinforcements are in place, you will have to bear the cost of repairing the damaged portion including the refilling. Then he came down and politely stated—–No, no, I will not go to that extent. But I will write a report about this project in our newspaper soon. I reacted—You are welcome to write a report. However, may I caution you to write a genuine report. Otherwise, I will write a report on the discussion we have just had with you in connection with the issue raised by you in my technical news-record (The Construction Tribune). After a few days, truly a report written by him did appear in his newspaper. To my utter surprise, his report appreciated the works done so far in the project. Even today, I have no concrete-answer to my questions—-With what purpose, did he go for raising a fabricated issue? Did he try to test my mind? Obviously, it is only the concerned-reporter who knows the correct answer to my questions coming to my mind even at this stage of my life.
After the above-described incident, the works of the ground floor started progressing as scheduled. In between, a committee constituted by the Government of Assam too kept on visiting the construction site from time to time. An incidentoccurring during one of the visits of this committee was described in my book9 under the subhead ‘7.6 Lack of clear understanding of Code-Provisions’ on pp 299—300. It is not dealt with herein for avoiding repetition. However, the said incident has been reproduced from the book9 under Appendix IIID for facilitating the ready reference by the interested readers.
Under my supervision, only the ground-floor including the gallery (without the roof) on the first floor was completed and used. The upper floors (first and the second) were not constructed for want of the required fund. However, at a later stage, the block was completed as a double-storied one by the management concerned without taking my consultancy services, though the structural design for the block was done at my end. The present view of this block appears in Image3.11 (given below). During my professional life, I always advocate for a basic ethical value to the effect that, for taking up any construction works on the top of an existing ground-floor structure, the information (if not the consent from) to the original designer needs to be given (or taken). The younger generation of professional engineers is expected to give due respect to this ethical value not only for safety of structures but also for the proper utilisation of available space.
3.20 Incident CA—19 accountable to Professional Challenge
An assignment of placing a staircase in an existing commercial building of an important commercial area of Jorhat City had to be taken up by me during the first part of the first decade of this century. This building was a four-storied one and built at a number of stages storey-wise. A brief location of the building has been schematically described through Figure 3.4 (a). The building had the main entry to the upper floors from the backside, as shown by the entry D (Figure 3.4 (a)). The value of the commercial potential of the building was realised by the owner and to earn the benefit of this increasing potential, the necessity of the introduction of a staircase from the front side of the existing building, i.e. from the Gar Ali side (Figure 3.4 (a)) was strongly felt and eventually the task was assigned to me.
The planning of the proposed staircase at the location shown by Figure 3.4 (a) was based on a number of considerations, the most important one being the aspect of the utilisation of space to be available on each floor after the execution. The ground floor houses the owner’s own business relating to electrical accessories of various types. The building floors had a width of about 6 m without intermediate columns. The challenge in structural design consisted in making an appropriate structural arrangement for the proposed staircase (marked ‘B’ in Figure 3.4 (a)) particularly in view of the heavy dead load already existing on each floor of this existing building. It was, indeed a challenging task for me as a structural engineer. However, I gathered courage to go ahead with this challenging task with full confidence in my own understanding of the basic principles of structural design gathered over substantially a long period. On the other hand, my client (the owner of the building), Mr. Brijmohan Sarma imposed on me the full confidence and gave me the full freedom to go ahead the way I would decide upon. Before I took a final call on the structural arrangement, I studied all aspects of the existing dead loads of each of the three upper floors. During this study, it was detected that there wereadditional layers of plain concrete (on top of R. C. main floor slab) on each of the upper floors. The thickness was found to vary between 100 mm to 200 mm. On my query, I came to know that these layers were provided to stop leakages caused by rainwater, since the upper floors were built at stages story-by-story with appreciable gap in between. With the consent from the owner, I got these additional layers removed through the engagement of labour-contractors. This is how the dead load was released to the tune of about 50 to 60 tonnes. The debris so obtained was utilised partly in filling the back yard of the existing building, the remaining being removed to other places. During the period of removal of top layers, the structural arrangement of the proposed staircase was finalised. Two new posts (Marked as Column 1 & Column 2 in Figure 3.4 (b)) were introduced to support the landing beams (for each flight) and two floor beams on each of 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors to be cut for taking the unidirectional flight (with an intermediate landing in each flight) of the staircase, as seen in Figure 3.4 (c). The most challenging aspect of the execution of this project was the cutting of floor beams without disturbing the stability of the whole building. Extreme cares had to be taken for supporting the two beams during the stage of cutting. This was, indeed a project, the execution of which yielded an unforgettable satisfaction to me as a structural engineer. The age of this newly introduced staircase is now more than 20 years. All structural aspects of this staircase block have been critically checked by me recently. The sound conditions observed in all aspects of its functioning gave me a sense of pride and pleasure at this stage of my life.
3.21 Incident CA—20 accountable to Professional Challenge (To be continued in the next Post of this Blog)
References:
9. A book entitled ‘A Journey through the Construction Industry’ by Dr. H. K. Barua, May, 2025, Excellar Books (Global Press), Kalkota, W.B.
16. A book entitled ‘Urban Flooding & Rainwater Harvesting’ by Dr. H. K. Barua, October, 2025, Exceller Books (Global Press), Kalkota, WB