2 days ago I got a call from an unknown number... It was a surprise a call from Mr TV Vaidyanathan. I had come across this brilliant Mechanical or more accurately a Mechanical Project Manager during erection and commissioning of MECON's Skin Pass Mill at Salem. One of 2 engineer (other was Mr Sugatahan)  who knew mechanical erection according to  Mr Munshi - who headed their department in MECON. Sri Vaidyanathan (TVV) is a nice gentleman a go getter and never say die type of person. During Salem E&C days we used to use his temporary liquor license for buying our drinks. During Vizag project days we came to know his prowess in use of PC's - including games (never my forte) and in playing cards. His wife was a proficient classical singer and sang over Radio  and other places. Later on she did not keep well & was ill and had many medical complications. She expired in 2009. As informed TVV's daughter is married of & is in D...

Were there no Emergency in India my life would not have been so exciting ! How ? Let us roll back a little to 1977 .. Janata Party - a conglomeration of anti Congress and anti Emergency political parties  overthrows Indira Gandhi Govt by thumping Majority after dark days of Emergency. Late Mr Biju Patnaik,  Steel Minister in new dispensation goes ahead to set aside earlier decision to have Russian Mills and gives the order for new CRM-II complex to MECON with Wean United Inc of USA.   Thus MECON - a leading Steel Consultancy Company - got the order for CRM-II in 1977 and  MECON had to play dual role as consultant as well as supplier of equipment for SAIL- Bokao Steel. In view of this new job some 17 electrical engineers were selected from Bokaro Steel Ltd for parallel transfer to MECON - both companies were subsidiary to SAIL at that time. I along with many of my friends Mr SB Mukherjee, Mr PC Sadhu,  Mr Prakash Chatterjee, Mr Udai Singh,...

Few years after performance guarantee test SAIL HQ realized the importance of fire fighting system, which was never commissioned to the satisfaction of Salem Steel. Almost Rs 2 Crore was pending from SAIL to MECON and there was pressure on Lube and Hyd department of MECON who had supplied the CO2 fire fighting system as turnkey system and our Electrical department was not involved. However when the problem of pending money came up- we were again summoned to recommission the system supplied by Vijay Fire. Sri KN Jana who was that time in Electro Technical Laboratory was asked to investigate and do the needful. After brief study he found that the power supply to main board was not stable. He assembled a power stabilizer using 2N3055 transistors and we started our journey to Salem. That time we found that we could afford to stay in Welcome Group Chola Shereton a 5 star Deluxe Hotel in Chennai as per our DA entitlement if we shared room. We did stay in that hotel sharing a room. ...

During Performance Guarantee Test of MECON's  2 Hi Stainless Steel Mill, we had to over stay at Salem due to  re - test for certain sizes of strip, which was not taken care in our planning. We, - myself, Dr KG Pandey, Mr SM Ganguly, Mr Raha and others,  were short of cash due to this delay and had just enough money to reach Calcutta (Now Kolkata.). We were not worried for our stay in Calcutta since our company had a guest house. We were also not worried for our onward journey for which we had confirmed air tickets.However we were definitely worried if we  were to miss the flight at Madras.  We reached Madras in the evening by train. Our  flight was at 6:30 PM. It left us with just enough  time to reach airport before check in counters will close. We immediately took a taxi and rushed to the airport.  But Murphy's Law caught up with us. "What may go wrong will go wrong." On way there were some trouble - a crude bomb was set off by miscreants ...

Film and sports personalities visit our hotel, Hotel Gokulam during our long stay hotel in Salem. During my various tours, I have been fortunate enough to come in contact with several celebrities. Some particular interesting ones happened during my stay at Salem between the years '80 - '81. This steel city was infact a mid-sized town. It was characterized by 3 road junctions namely, anja roda (5 Road Junction), naal roda (4 Road Junction) and moon roda (3 Road Junction). During the time two hotels were considered "good" - Hotel Gokulam and Hotel National. Hotel -Gokulam, where we stayed was located near "anja roda", while Hotel - National was located at "naal roda". Out of the two, Hotel Gokulam was a popular destination for film personalities. We even had chance to see some film shooting in this hotel. Salem itself had a film studio while nearby Yercaud is a scenic hill station well suited for outdoor shooting. I recall one par...

In the last post I wrote a story which was not exactly my own experience but experience of one of my colleague in the our section Mr JVSN Rao. I desire to dedicate one posts on my old colleagues of  80's in MECON - particularly when Rolling Mill and Auxiliary Equipment Division (RM&AED) of MECON was located in rented building called Apna Bazar Building - which houses Income Tax office now. RM&AED also was called United Wing due since we used to design and supply rolling mills under collaboration with Wean United Inc of Pittsburgh, USA. There was one company's who's brochure meant for Mr BP Sarkar used to have an interesting address "Mr BP Sarkar, Chief Design Engineer, United King , MECON, Ranchi-834002". Replacement of United Wing with "United King" matched well with Mr Sarkar's royal manners and we shall some time refer to Mr Sarkar as "UNITED KING" Our department was headed by Mr Ramadurai. Others were Mr BP Goyal, Mr...

In the last post I have posted regarding problem of heavy foundation vibrations of Entty Reel due to faulty instrument gearing arrangement and and how EPC was commissioned. In this post I am going to write a brief story I heard from my friend Sri JVSN Rao as reminded by my friend Sri Kalyan Bhattacharjee regarding visit of Mr BP Sarkar to Midhani, Hyderabad. In subsequent post I am also going to tell a story as to how low on money, we almost missed our flight back from Madras to Calcutta (that time it was neither Chennai nor Kolkata). Firstly story at MIDHANI. Mr JVSN Rao was posted on temporary transfer to Midhani, Hyderabad for commissioning of bar mill. That time temporary transfer meant allowance of  Rs 13.00 a day against Rs 54.00 per day for persons on tour. Since engineers from all other department were on tour, Mr Rao used for feel deprived. When invited by Mr Rana for beer, he used to calculate his finances since a bottle of beer used to cost Rs 17.00. During that peri...