Facets of Divine Construction - Swami's Style of Project Management

by A. Ramakrishna, President Operations & Deputy Managing Director, Larsen & Toubro Ltd.

Through timely execution of projects with speed and uncompromising quality, Larsen & Toubro has been able to contribute to some outstanding and award winning works, undertaken by Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, under the unique guidance of Bhagawan Sathya Sai Baba himself. In the process, Larsen & Toubro has had the privilege of experiencing certain aspects of project management and construction management, which can be followed by other projects.

The super speciality hospital at Puttaparthi (Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences) came up in an unbelievably short time. In just eight months, the hospital moved from commencement of construction to conducting cardiac operations! Wonder-struck, people started asking how it was possible that a magnificent hospital with so many modern facilities and services could be completed in such a short time and at such a low cost. The answer simply lies in Swamiji's unique style of project execution.

In fact, in most cases a new project is announced by Swami on a particular Birthday. Almost invariably, the project is inaugurated on his next birthday or earlier on a festive occasion. This brings in a sense of wonder even among professionals. Before our company got involved in Sri Sathya Sai projects, we had the reputation of constructing and completing projects at a fast pace, comparable to internationally accepted targets. While we might have achieved wonders by completing other projects, fast elsewhere, in the case of Sri Sathya Sai projects, Swami seemed to have performed miracles through us. A few highlights are given below to bring out the essential reasons which contribute to making Sri Sathya Sai projects far better in all aspects - architecture, engineering and design, contract settlement, agency selection, quality control, cost control, project management and monitoring, and time of completion.

Not the least of these positive factors is the commitment of people involved in the project and the general happiness and satisfaction that prevails at the end of the project. It is hoped that this would provide pointers for similar projects elsewhere in the country.

Architecture

In all the projects which Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba has taken up, he gives prime importance to aesthetics and architecture right from the beginning as well as through the entire construction phase. Quite often, He asks specialist architects to prepare drawings and a perspective view or a model. He then suggests modifications which the architect could incorporate. In many cases the hints given by Swami help shape the building to be quite different and aesthetically pleasing, compared to similar projects conceived by others.

Baba has quite often commented that a flat roof structure is like a headless man and always introduced either a dome or some feature including sthapati and ornamentation work to make the building come alive and inspiring to those who work on the project or live in the building. People may wonder whether he insists on vaastu shastra as per the tradition. To our surprise he never insisted even though he has commended vaastu shastra as appropriate for the time for which it was conceived and the basic concepts are no different even today. But he has always given importance to functionality, simplicity and use of modern sciences without any dogmatic approach to vaastu shastra or other practices as in some parts of the country.

Engineering and Design

Economy in use of materials and knowledge of modern techniques are given importance. Swami has always made sure that the architecture and engineering design go hand-in-hand and there are no conflicts in realising the ultimate goal of an outstanding building. Through the experience of our many engineers associated with Sri Sathya Sai projects, it is a wonder that he used to point out certain technical aspects which have to be taken note of or details modified at the appropriate time even to those experts who might miss such important points. This confirms the belief of many followers that his knowledge of science is extraordinary, unfathomable and unbelievable.

Estimates

When the design and engineering are approved in principle, an estimate is prepared in such a way that the total cost of the project is much lower than a conventionally accepted thumb rule would suggest. The estimates are gone through in great detail by members of the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust who give an independent opinion on how the costs can be further reduced or controlled. These inputs ultimately are taken by the agency to bring in maximum economy in terms of cost of materials, labour, construction methods and thus overall project cost. In this effort Trust personnel is able to talk to suppliers of major materials and often gets concessional prices or sometimes even free supplies of materials. Efforts are made to get the necessary approvals quickly from Government to save levies like excise duty, sales tax, etc. All these efforts are made in a very short time, so that the lowest benchmark price is achieved right in the beginning of the project to enable monitoring and control of the final total project cost.

Selecting the Agencies for Construction

In the Government or even in big corporations, agencies are selected primarily based on initial low bid and not on lifetime total cost of a project. The process involved in such tenders, especially in Government, is so long that precious time is lost and in the meantime, due to inflation, prices go up and the ultimate cost of the project is nowhere near the initial estimates. This is totally avoided in the case of Sri Sathya Sai projects by selecting the right agency on the basis of past experience and the requirement to entrust the job to that agency, which has shown commitment to perform in short time against odds. After this a genuine effort is made to cut down costs as much as possible without sacrificing neither quality nor time.

In the light of the nature of "service jobs taken up for the general good", the purity of the purpose involves that there is an automatic interest in all concerned agencies to offer the lowest price possible. While the contract is settled on such a basis, the Trust keeps enough leeway to make changes and adjust the overall project cost from considerations of economy and changes that may come about as a result of the detailed project design. Entrusting the work to a single agency with overall responsibility ensures that there is unity of purpose and commitment to complete the job within the time frame and cost limit without sacrificing quality.

The examples on the following pages ("Facets of Divine Construction") highlight some of the aspects of project management, which ultimately resulted in high quality buildings and projects which won international awards and were acclaimed all round as they all represent high aesthetics, unbelievably low cost and extremely short completion time.

There are many instances where critical hurdles, which would normally have been intractable, were swept away as though by a divine hand. Essentially, as Swami himself described, it is the unity, purity and divinity which help projects move rapidly from concept to reality. And that is exactly our experience at Larsen and Toubro.