I remember the days when I was at Korba, the Korba Super Thermal Power Project of NTPC.  It was the year 1987 when we were doing the erection of the second 500 MW unit i.e. Unit #5 of the plant.  The erection cycle of the 500 MW was of about 42 months from the start.

Many Projects create records. Some create history. But there are some that become history itself.

One of the biggest civilian development projects on the face of the earth - the Great Man-Made River or GMMR as it is known, was one such project. In 1990, it was history in making. You may be wondering that this story is about a crude oil pumping station or a refinery. No, it is the sweet water dream project known as the “Great Man Made River Project”. Normal water is in abundance in a country like ours, but the same water is a precious commodity (called sweet water) in the North African Sahara. Every drop of sweet water is extracted from saline sea water. And in those parts of the world, you possibly pay more for a litre of water than a litre of gasoline.

Through the sixth-floor office windows, I was looking at the heavy dark clouds and the rain pouring out of them. I knew from my previous experiences, the traffic in Gurgaon gets bad after evening showers. I started early for home, a distance of about 6.5 km. I drove about 4 km and near Signature Tower found myself driving into the road leading to the Huda City Center metro station with at least a foot of running water under my car. About a 100 meters further, I stopped in the middle of standstill traffic. In next two hours, I moved about 300 meters. It took another 30 minutes to negotiate a right turn and join absolute chaos and mayhem, now best known as - the "Gurujam"