Founding Team of Ashok Leyland Alwar Honored on its 41st Foundation Day
Founding Team of Ashok Leyland Alwar Honored on its 41st Foundation Day
Run up to ALL’s 75th Foundation Anniversary on September 7
Tejinder Singh Bedi
Celebrating the 41st Foundation Day of its Alwar plant situated in its Matsya Industrial Belt, the top management of the Ashok Leyland team has exhibited an exemplary gesture of honoring all of its founding team members who are kicking and running still 40 plus years thence and could be located and reached through a dedicated team of its city-based retirees Ashok Chopra, Vinay Bhardwaj, Ravindra Sharma, C R Suthar, G P Agarwal, V C Dwivedi & Mohammad Alam besides the present Head -HR Gopinath A. The two days event included a wonderfully hospitable stay in a 5-star facility celebrating a big cultural bash with this author and the first managerial cadre employee in its HR, Administration & Training team. Existing dynamic young General Manager of Alwar plant and also the COO of its second unit, the VBSL, Rajendra Thakre flanked by Plant Heads Anil Kumar Vijay & Amit Garg meticulously lead all the hospitalities and one on one interactions with most of the first (1981–82) batch of GETs, ETs, and Managers as an exemplary initiative for motivating the present gen employees too for the care and love such a professional outlook of any Corporate House can nurture for its founding and ex-employees.
Recalling some of the memorable moments of his wonderful experience at ALL, Tejinder Singh Bedi recalled how swiftly the process of acquisition of over 330 acres of a completely barren land sans any fencing around its huge boundaries was completed in just about a year with great support coming from Project heads like G T Jacob, A K Guin & A K Patel under the inspiring leadership of Lt Gen H S Banga, its founding CEO. Quick fencing of the huge site thus became the first priority alongside organizing the first telecom connectivity with the outside world. For almost the entire first two years there was only one Air Conditioned room in the initial project set up and the founding project team really had to toil very hard rather sweat out profusely, working almost 20 hours a day both in the famous scorching heat and chilling cold of Alwar’s summer and winter seasons corroborated by its first maintenance head Dinesh Kumar Goyal, now turned a formal author listed with Kindle and amazon both. Goyal’s book, “Inscrutable Principles — Beyond the Best B Schools” was also re-released on this occasion by the ALL General Manager, Rajendra Thakre. There was an acute shortage of water supply in the city too and each of us had to make sure to get up between 4 to 5 am to fill up a few buckets of water for our daily needs of drinking, bathing, washing, etc. Connectivity between the city and the MIA area was next to nothing and commutation to the project site was a real challenge for most. For employees relocating from Delhi, surrounding areas, and other Metro and even B-Class cities was nothing less than a shock when it was found that the daily National newspaper too used to arrive only the day next after publication and not the same day! A basic need like Britannia bread was not available in the city. The challenge had grown harder for the likes of this author who could not even ease himself completely without having carried an up-to-date issue of a national daily.
All in all, Bedi concluded such added huge gaps in the city infrastructure and facilities had multiplied the challenges of its just 3 to 4 persons team of HR & Administration multifold equally engrossed in colonizing an island on Mars with hardly any ISRO’s Chandrayan-like support systems at hand besides ensuring quickest recruitment, induction of all fresh employees, trainees and supporting earliest commissioning of its Training Center headed by R L Agarwal, the then retired Principal of Alwar’s Government Polytechnic. who at 95 is still kicking around and attended all sessions of the two-day reunion as enthusiastically as a youngster of their thirties might do!! Collection and delivery of daily Dak was a big issue. Medical facilities within the city too, especially the pediatrics for the young families relocating fast were very poor to begin with for a long time. Availability of good schools for the upcoming kids was another huge issue as Eicher Tractor’s own very famous school in Alwar was the only good facility and the first choice of most couples but the admissions looked like qualifying for the Civil Services by the kids!! For a long time, the team operated from a makeshift office set up in its Training Room. Because of the open boundaries and highly underdeveloped surroundings, handling complaints of petty thefts from the project material open and closed stores was another huge challenge. A regular canteen was yet to be started. However, thanks to all these challenges, added Bedi the multitasking efforts really developed a passionate HR or rather people management specialist in him in a career of his choice first conferred by none other than the first Navratna of PSUs in India, the BHEL across all levels; from celebrities to the most successful corporate czars and all levels of working hands on the grounds in any direct or indirect interactive stakeholders like the village panchayats, government, and other social agencies.
Amidst all such difficulties, it was the relentless support always coming from the legendary corporate team of J N Amrolia, Director(HR), R. Seshasayee, Director(Finance), Managing Director, Ram Shahaney, and Executive Director Lt. Gen H S Banga that had kept the morale of this first project team flying high all playing a pivotal and an unforgettable role in building a strong edifice for the ALL Plants of date! aIt may be added here that the great Ashok Leyland is celebrating its 75th year of its growth in India since 1948 on September 7 this year and the current celebration marking the 41st foundation year of the Alwar plant is a first step in the chain of such celebrations of togetherness with the old as well as the new!