The work moves before the megawatts do

In the 2022 summer our contract cleaning crews, about 640 workers across seven parks in Rajasthan and Gujarat, reported 41 cases of heat-related illness. Cleaning ran from 8 am to 4 pm with water breaks, a pattern carried over from our first park.

I proposed moving all summer cleaning into two shifts, 4 am to 10 am and 6 pm to 11 pm, and stopping non-emergency outdoor work between noon and 4 pm from April to June. The head of renewable operations disagreed strongly. Night work meant cable trenches, snakes and poor visibility near live strings, and he doubted cleaning quality in the dark. Finance objected to the cost. Two contractors were uneasy about women cleaners on evening shifts and the safeguards that would require.

We piloted the pattern at two parks in 2023 before extending it. The changes included head torches and fixed block lighting, marked walking routes, snake-bite kits and trained responders at every shift, and transport home after each shift. Women workers chose their shift, and most chose mornings. Heat-index readings were taken hourly at the blocks.

The trade-off was real. Cleaning cost per megawatt rose 14 per cent, about ₹1.9 crore a summer. In the dustiest weeks, cleaning cycles stretched from twelve days to fifteen, and operations estimated a 0.4 per cent generation loss at those parks in May. The managing director approved the change on the condition that we report those losses each year.

Reported heat illness fell to 17 cases in 2023 and 9 in 2024, then rose to 11 in the hotter June of 2025. Summer turnover in the cleaning crews fell from 38 per cent to 19 per cent. The heat plan is now written into our cleaning contracts.

I would ask the crews before designing the shifts next time. We learnt only later that many cleaners wanted a longer morning shift because of household work in the evening. I would also have used the heat index from the start rather than shade temperature.

In 2023 the Chhattisgarh station employed 760 people with an average age of 41. The board had decided in 2022 to build no further coal capacity. At the same time, the parks needed about 260 more operations staff by 2027.

I proposed a voluntary programme for station technicians under 48: nine months of training in inverters, plant control software, substation work and module diagnostics, three months on a working park, then a transfer with a relocation allowance, help with school admissions and job-search support for spouses. Anyone who transferred could return to an equivalent station role within a year. The station head feared losing his best electricians before the 2025 overhaul. The union wanted assurance that nobody would be pushed. The chief financial officer preferred hiring near the parks, where salaries were about 18 per cent lower, and considering a voluntary retirement scheme later.

We agreed to release people in three batches capped at 40 each, so that the station could plan its overhaul. The renewables business accepted slower staffing and kept transferred employees at their station salary, which costs about ₹3.2 crore a year more than local hiring would have. The programme itself cost ₹11.8 crore over two years.

Of 126 applicants, 94 completed the training and 71 transferred. Nine returned to the station within the year. Station availability held at 86 per cent, although the 2025 overhaul needed more contract specialists than planned. Transferred technicians now make up 30 of the 46 people in operations roles at Koppal, where the battery system is being built.

The station's future is now discussed with its employees as a set of choices rather than a rumour. The 23 who completed training but stayed at the station have skills they can use if its life ends sooner than 2035.

I would involve families earlier. Of those 23, 14 cited a spouse's work or their children's schooling. Next time I would hold family sessions in the township before applications open, not after the training ends.

By 2024 about 430 contract maintenance technicians, engaged through six contractors, worked beside 210 junior permanent technicians on the parks. Their duties overlapped closely, but their basic wage was about 31 per cent lower. Twelve-month attrition among contract technicians was 46 per cent, and an audit found two contractors paying more than three weeks late at remote sites.

I proposed that from April 2025 each contractor pay matched-duty technicians at least the basic wage of our junior permanent grade, by bank transfer before the seventh of each month, with monthly sampling of wage registers against our attendance records. The finance and procurement heads objected to the cost and asked whether matching wages would invite claims that the contract arrangement was not genuine. We took legal advice on how to define the duties and supervise the contractors. The operations head preferred converting the best contract technicians to permanent roles and leaving the rest unchanged.

We did both, in part. The floor covers basic wage only, not allowances or benefits, so a gap of about 12 per cent in total pay remains. We also filled 38 permanent vacancies through open selection, which contract technicians could enter. Revised contract rates cost ₹7.4 crore a year, and margins fell on two supply contracts priced before the change. Two of the six contractors left rather than accept the audits, and replacing them took four months.

Twelve months later, attrition among contract technicians had fallen to 22 per cent. Average time to restore an inverter fault fell from 9.5 hours to 6.8. Operations attributes part of that improvement to retained experience and part to better spares. No late payment has been found since the audits began.

The wider change is that contractor selection now gives as much weight to payroll evidence as to price.

I would publish the matched-duty definitions to the technicians themselves. Many heard about the change through rumour, and two contractors briefly reclassified duties to avoid the floor before our audits found it.