Choti Choti Batyen of NTPC
[After superannuation when I look back on my 36 years span of NTPC carrier, I find many uncanny incidents that I tried to recall in this blog post. Hope you will enjoy this. Comments are welcome]
Vindhyachal plant versus Vindhyachal shakti peeth temple:
That was middle of March, 1988, After MTA few of us were posted at Vindhyachal for DOJ training. The plant Vindhyachal was situated at the then district Sidhi, MP. The original Vindhyachal – a sacred temple in Mirzapur district of UP was 250 km away from this plant Vindhyachal. We were coming from Delhi by Rajdhani express. We were told to get off at Mughalsarai station [Now renamed as Pandit Deen Dayal station] and board on a local bus for the Vindhyachal, Sidhi. The journey would take about 7 to 8 hours through the rugged hilly landscape of Robertsganj, Dala , Renusagar & Shaktinagar areas which is commonly known as malaria belt of MP.
Therefore, it was better to have dinner before boarding the bus. Accordingly we took a proletariat dinner at a road side restaurant and then boarded the dilapidated state transport Bus ready for Vindhyachal. The bus took start at 10PM. We were all drowsing with the slow pace of the Bus when at 12:20 the conductor woke us all up as the Vindhyachal had arrived!
I got totally confused, the 7 hours journey is over in 2 hours! But the conductor was dead serious that it was Vindhyachal and anybody could vouch for that even the roadside paan wala!
Quickly we all 5 alighted off the bus and the bus left us stranded on the deserted night of the Vindhyachal road!
Tall chimneys with blinking flash light – the most common iconic landmark of any NTPC power plant is nowhere visible. The trusted paan wala confirmed that there is no Chimney nearby. On further probe, it got confirmed that we have reached the Vindhyachal for sure but the Vindhyachal NTPC is not at this Vindhyachal at Mirzapur. The trusted paan wala further confirmed that for the chimney wala Vindhyachal , we have to reach Vindhyanagar, Sidhi.
The next a bus was at 2AM later that night which finally took us to Vindhyanagar at 10’O clock next morning.
Champa to Korba road: That’s the 50 km shortest road journey from Champa rail station to Korba bus stand for reaching Korba NTPC. The other alternative was from Bilaspur to Korba road journey via Ratanpur, amounting to 110 KM and that’s the long shot. Those who are coming from Bihar, Bengal or Orissa side for them Champa comes one hour before Bilaspur on the South Eastern rail road.
But the Champa-Korba road was very special in those days, the 50 km long road used to take 3 to 4 hours in Willyx jeep – the only vehicle available those days. The road was practically non-existent. The driver used to crane out his head out of the side door to look out for road to place the four wheels safely! The road those days gave the new meaning to the word ‘bad’. Even for meaning anything bad we used to refer ‘Champa-Korba road’ during those days!
However, be it Durga puja holidays or any other holidays, we always used to travel in groups. Therefore, the Champa-Korba road journey was always fun filled among friends & colleagues. The road was reconstructed during 1994.
Leaves & tickets both were short supplied: For Bengalies or Beharies Durgapuja was the greatest festival. Everybody wants to go home during Durgapuja besides, Bengalies & Biharies were in majority in Korba in those days! Those who were in General shift duty for them managing leave was less cumbersome but for we, the operation guys who were in shift duty for them it was a complex management.
We needed 5 days leave of absence. The day we leave , will be leaving after night shift and the day we arrive, will join in evening shift or night shift. Therefore, all in all it required 5 days of absence. So we arranged double-guys who will do double shift operation during my absence. Some will scarifie his weekly-off to do duty for my place because no position could go empty!
Those who did extra duty would get compensatory off while we had to work extra shifts during their off days. That’s how those holidays were managed behind the eyes of management.
On the other side the railways reservations too were very short supplied those days. There were only few trains and fewer quotas in Bilaspur, Champa & Shakti [next to Champa] which were tried first. The preferred trains were Ahmedabad express and the Bombay mail. If no reservations was available, the first thing to do after boarding the train was connect the TTE for reservations at next stations like Shakti, Jharsuguda, Raigarh, Chakradharpur if not at Raurkela even upto Kharagpur we would try in the worst case.
In another unfavorable case there was one Neelachal express, which would go to Puri via Kharagpur. We would get off at Kharagpur to catch a local train to reach Howrah. The timing of the train was very inconvenient otherwise you would get reservation somewhere before Kharagpur if not at the counter.
One point worth to mention that, that was the time around 90s when buying an AC ticket would cost a fortune! Therefore, a ticket in the sleeper coach was jolly good then!
Cycle advance to EETs: It was August of 1988 and we were posted in VSTPP after DOJ. The first unit of stage-1 was undergoing trial operations. We had to come in shifts besides reporting in many odd hours for work. Coming and going back was a great problem for all of us due to non availability of personal connivences. So in one general shift we land up in CPM’s office [that days the HOHR was called Chief Personal Manager] and asked advance money for bicycle purchase. After some negotiations she agreed to advance us INR:500 for buying a bicycle each. The advance would be interest free and would be recovered from monthly salary in ten equal installments. We all agreed and in next couple of days we all purchased a new bicycle from Shaktinagar shopping complex. Perhaps that was the first & the last cycle advance provided to the poor EETs.
[To be continued…]
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