Experience of handling the conflict with Client

without jeopardizing the situation

I was Planning Manager in L&T Construction from July 13 – July 16. My posting was in
Udaipura, a small village 150 km away from Bhopal along the NH 12. We were executing a
Project of Madhya Pradesh Jal Nigam Maryadit. The Project value was 150 Crs and it includes
laying of 450 km of DI Pipes and 325 km of HDPE, construction of Intake Well at the bank of
Narmada, building a WTP and 42 ESR’s.

During initial phases of construction at Intake Well, locals have protested citing their land
encroachment neat the bank. Since ROW was in scope of Client, we approached DGM and
requested them to solve this issue. However, Government officials told us that since L&T is
executing the project and our team is interacting with the people on daily basis, it is better
that L&T do this ROW.

Though we have cited tender documents of ROW scope, Client was unwilling to go to the Site
and do the negotiation. Construction of Intake well was a critical activity and the delay was
hampering our construction schedule.

Hence, in order to pace the activities, we decided to approach village Sarpanchs and
Pradhans. We have set up meeting with these officials along with our Client representatives.
In the meeting, we have demonstrated how this intake well construction is going to benefit
the people by providing them fresh water. We have highlighted the issues which villagers
were currently facing because of non-availability of fresh water. We have also ensured that
the bank which was damaged by the construction will be stored properly with the proper
bank construction. We conduct monthly CSR activities as part of our corporate commitment
to the society. We ensured to the village heads that free notebooks and all the school
stationaries will be distributed to the village school children.

It was a wonderful engagement with all the stakeholders and finally we got the permission
for the construction activities. We have mobilized the manpower and completed the
construction well ahead of time.