Monday 21 January 2019

Tornagallu Diary - 3


Ramesh Kumar

April 2017. Yes, that was when I got acquainted with this steel city built from the scratch by the Sajjan Jindal side of the huge Jindal conglomerate for the first time. Once again, am back. One big difference is that it enjoys an air link via Bengaluru or Hyderabad. Earlier we used to fly down from Delhi to either of these two southern cities and train or bus down overnight in private sleeper coaches.

Just a recap. This is what I wrote in my dispatch Tornagallu Diary-1 that time:

Honestly I never heard of Toranagallu until my  colleague Selvan Dasaraj at TransportMitra spoke of it almost a year ago. Barring a few superb images shot with his Blackberry and loads of talk of this town or village by him post visit, I knew nothing. Yes, my only source of information was him, notwithstanding that my relatives even today live at Tungabhadra Dam and I did visit them a quarter century ago. The aforementioned Dam is hardly 40 km away from Tornagallu.  

How and why Toranagallu became a part of my lexicon? This warrants a dive into the origin of Transport Mitra, a for-profit business enterprise. Two of us - Selvan and self - met in 2013 due to our common interest in studying the lives of long haul truck driver and their families. He is a logistician with more than a quarter century past and me, a business journalist with specialization  in supply chain and logistics. (To know more about our "coming together", check out http://bit.ly/2otPWo8).

In 2016, he heard about Toranagallu from a mutual friend and .... also about the huge industrial township of JSW Steel Limited in the heart of Sandur mining zone. However big or small the enterprise be, truck driver is one of  the key supplychain element. The JSW Steel Limited's India's largest integrated steel plant is no different. 

Then we were hired to transform their truck drivers operating between JSW captive mines and railway siding  and or manufacturing plant. TransportMitra completed the task over 100 days successfully.

Now again, it is  the same truck driver connect that has brought TransportMitra back to this integrated steel city. We have been synonymous with driver relationship management and one of our recent callers is the Kataria Movers/MD Movers, significantly serving JSW again on the finished product transportation. Earlier, we were in this steel city for a behavioral change assignment with the OEM. This time, it is for behavioral change of the OEM's logistic service provider.

Shashank Jain flanked by Raghuram Sharma (in blue jacket) of TransportMitra and Amit Varma

Kataria Movers is focused on steel movement for various iron & steel manufacturers spread across India. Tata Steel and JSW are two vital clients for this  Jain group. Thirtyish  Director Shashank Jain, nephew of promoter Managing Director Dharmesh Jain, in our maiden meeting at his third floor, escalator-free office in the heart of this steel town, hastens to add that they are "no way related to the Katarias" - another huge transport family spread across India focused on various niche segments.

Our task is to hold an intensive smart driver training program for his company-owned trucks' drivers (approx. 225) at Tornagallu, servicing JSW to begin with. Of course, Kataria Movers hire third party vehicles as well to meet their  client needs. But at this juncture, our training target is the company owned vehicle drivers only.

TransportMitra focuses on soft skills because HCV OEMs and other outfits are already well entrenched in that arena. Soft skill is an area where there are few players. The reason is not too far to seek. Long haul truck drivers are nomads, so to say. Catching  them and keeping them engaged in a class room session at a stretch for a couple of  hours is a Herculean task.

Having said that, we at TransportMitra have finetuned our skill set to address this lacuna over the past four years. Imparting finer aspects of living to nomadic truck drivers is a challenge. Not impossible. Doable. We have done. Now again at it to engage the drivers of Kataria Movers at Tornagallu.

Managerial expertise. Yes. Ground level exposure. Yes. Teaching or coaching talent. Yes. Patience. Loads and loads. Because the engagement with truck drivers warrants that criteria.

Our Integrated Smart Driver Training Programme, currently on is an engaging story.  This "Tornagallu Diary" narrative in piecemeal will capture the happenings on ground.

The pillar of this coaching/teaching is Raghuram Sharma. Who's he?

Watch out for the next dispatch.


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