Technology to sustain
line up one after the other for the excavator to fill their rock bodies with overburden up to the brim. Mann signal the driver of one of the trucks to disembark. I take his place. In the crawler gear, the truck moves up an incline with ease. It feels like there’s much more than the expected 25-tonne load at the rear. Overloading in the mining context is not a well kept secret. The soft cotton soil is sticky, and the tyres, I can sense, are cutting into the soil, making sizeable trenches. Grip and traction are hard found luxuries, and the Pro 8031T keeps going, its mighty torque not letting the soil win. With heavy use, the gear shifter feels a bit vague in its travel. The gears slot nevertheless. A tough creature this truck is as it ploughs through the soft soil, and rolls over to the dumping site, which is a about a km away. The trenches dug by earlier travels has the truck tramline almost. There is no easy life for the driver or the machine here. AC is the saviour.
A few meters from the dumping site is parked a white Bolero of the Volvo service team with a site engineer in it. The nearest brick and mortar service center is 35 km away at Chandrapur, and stocks inventory. It has the capability to carry out heavy repairs. A crucial link such centres play in ensuring that the trucks are on the job 24 x7. Expresses Mann, that maintenance is carried out at 9 am in the morning, and at 8 pm in the evening.” Responds Siddharth, that it helps to have a direct contact with the customer. “That is what keeps us ahead,” he adds. An interesting perspective Kirtane provides is on how technology is helping operators like Mann to sustain in a tough business environment where businessmen with deep pockets and little experience are bagging contracts at costs that could be hardly termed as sustainable. The rate at which a contract like this was awarded to a company over two decades ago is the same even today, avers Mann. The price of diesel, which amounts close to 60 per cent of the total project cost, has increased significantly, he adds. States