Four questions a remote power site keeps asking

On a solar park in May the hazard is the working day itself. I plan summer work from hourly heat-index readings taken at the blocks where crews actually stand, not from the shaded control room. That evidence decides when outdoor tasks stop, how long rest breaks last and which work moves to early morning or evening. Night work brings its own risks: cable trenches, snakes, poor visibility near live strings and the journey home. Each shift change therefore needs lighting, walking routes, trained first responders and transport agreed before it starts. Contract supervisors must be able to stop work without asking permission from a commercial manager. Where women choose night or early shifts, the consent and safeguards the law attaches to that work are arranged by us and checked, not left to the contractor's goodwill.

A thermal station trains people in permit-to-work discipline, high-voltage switching, protection relays and DC battery systems. Those skills transfer directly to a solar or hybrid substation. Inverter diagnostics, plant control software, module fault-finding and battery thermal management do not, and pretending otherwise puts an underprepared technician on a remote site alone. I map each station role against the park roles it could reach, then build training with equipment makers' instructors and a supervised period on a working park. Transfers are voluntary and carry a right to return for a year. The hardest part is rarely technical. A move from Chhattisgarh to Rajasthan or Karnataka is a family decision about a spouse's work, schools and ageing parents. I now start those conversations before anyone applies.

Most hands on our sites belong to contractors: cleaning crews, vegetation teams, security, construction gangs and a share of maintenance technicians. As principal employer we carry obligations for how they are paid and protected, and the four labour codes now replacing the older statutes have not changed that basic position. I insist on payment by bank transfer by a fixed date, monthly sampling of wage registers against our own attendance records and safety induction we deliver ourselves. Where contract technicians perform the same duties as our junior permanent grade, they now receive at least its basic wage. I do not believe every contract role should become permanent. Seasonal and construction work rises and falls. The test I apply is whether the arrangement would still look fair if the worker could read every document behind it.

When I joined Oruvanthi, women worked in our offices and control rooms but not on the blocks. We now have 64 women in field roles across the parks, up from 11 in 2021. The change depended on details that are easy to dismiss: separate accommodation with secure access, toilets placed within reach of the work rather than at the gate, transport at shift ends and protective equipment cut for women's sizes. Each park can reach our internal committee under the workplace harassment law without going through the site manager. I also watch for quieter forms of exclusion. A woman technician who is always assigned to the control room is not in a field role, whatever her title says. Supervisors' allocation records are reviewed quarterly so that site work is shared fairly.