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Vidya Bala

Chennai, July 13 Less than a week after it unveiled an impressive financial performance for 2008-09, Gammon India is caught in a quagmire, after a portion of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation bridge being built by the company collapsed, resulting in loss of lives and injuries.

The episode is almost a repeat of late 2007, when the company was under the scanner after pre-cast blocks of a flyover under construction in Hyderabad caved in during rains, killing two people.

While the company was penalised for negligence in the Hyderabad mishap, it was allowed to complete the project. The company was also stated to have filed claims for insurance for the losses it suffered.

‘Laying the Foundation for Perfection’, is how Gammon describes itself in its profile on its Web site. This over 70-year-old company, in fact, claims to have laid the foundation for the Gateway of India way back in 1919.

Together with its subsidiary Gammon Infrastructure Projects, it is among the largest civil engineering companies in the country.

It ranks eighth in terms of revenue (Rs 3,650 crore in FY-09) among listed infrastructure companies.

According to its Web site, the Brahmaputra and Kosi bridges, Gorakhpur bypass and West Bengal Corridor Project are some of the current projects.

Gammon has traditionally been a specialist in transport engineering with a substantial portion of its standalone order- book of over Rs 8,000 crore (as of early 2009), coming from transport projects that include bridges, flyovers, roads, highways and railways.

The company, in its Web site, claims to have built the largest number of bridges in the whole of the Commonwealth Nations. Its landmark projects include the bridge across the Ganga in Patna.

It is, however, interesting to note that Gammon has been consciously trying to move away from pure cash contracts focussed on the transport sector, to becoming an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) player in the power sector in recent times.

Towards this end, it has been acquiring companies. Transport cash contracts have been less prominent in recent order flows.

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