Survey and Fencing - Part 3

Fencing

This is the activity i was waiting for.  Fencing activity gives a high feeling because you are securing your own land and for good.  Fencing a land starts with a decision to be made.  Wheather to outsource the entire activity or do it yourself.  After calculating my area of land, it came to around 1400 feet perimeter distance. Even at very nominal rate of around 140 per feet, it will come to more than two lakhs. Therefore discarded that idea and decided to do on my own.  My farm supervisor was ready to do it himself and showed positivity. So I supported him.


The newly purchased Earth Augur at work.
Two men required. 20 holes per liter of petrol

Now some corporate planning  (using our business brain).  For installing the pillars and subsequently for tree planting, I decided i will purchase an earth Augur. I got this from 'pasumai vikatan'.  Browsed the internet and found a dealer in Madurai having branch in Tirunelveli. Couple of visits to that place for Demo (In village, you need to wait for many many days even for a mundae activity like a demo.).   The demo equipment had gone out, person incharge will go out of station, the technician is not there etc can be some of the excuses. Neverthless, the demo happened and my farm supervisor was happy. he sent me the photographs of the equipment in action. I decided on the best one and cost me 39000/-. Worth the investment.

Purchased in small lots and stored on farm.
Without fence it was vulnarable for theft.

Next is the stone pillars itself. To buy them in lot will not happen. There are few people (unlicenced) whom I want to help. Very poor people who work on daily wages cutting stone. After all, our project is to support low income groups. Therefore decided to go in small batches of 6 stones. Because they are poor, we need to settle cash on hand every time. Accumulate around 3 such batches and hire a vehicle for delivery.   Store the 25 stones in the farm on the ground.  Like this waited till the total count exceeded 160 Pillars.  After installation it was counted and found that around 14 had gone missing. few got broken.

The next in the list of items is Tata Stell Wire mesh. I decided to go for wire mesh called chain link fencing.  Different vendors in different towns like Valliyoor, Tirunelveli were contacted.  A mesh having 3.25" gap with 4.5 feet tall and having 2.5mm thickness was selected.  The process is by giving an advance confirm the order and wait for the wire to be knitted in factory. Then it is delivered.

We estimated we need around 18 bundles of knitted wire. weighing around 2 tonnes.  The total spend was something like this;

Description	Unit Rate	Quantity	Amount
7 feet stone	195	50	9750
5 feet stone	165	140	23100
Delivery van per 25 stone	400	10	4000
Unloading labor	400	10	4000
Tractor trip	300	30	9000
JCB	5000	4	20000
Bulldoser	5000	4	20000
Fence Material	40	1400	56000
Labour charge 3 days	500	30	15000
			160850



The actual fastening of the wire mesh cannot be done by ordinary labours. Therefore few workers at Rs. 500 per day were hired for this purpose who did a good job.

For team motivation, lunch was served (mostly biryani is liked by everyone). Water supply. A shade was built as a semi permanent setup. The construction of this cost some money (i remember less than 5K), but is worth spending.

Shade under construction for resting

Completed Shade (tent)

Quality and Alignment check

Post fencing, I started guessing the shape of the farm. I gave some "engineer" to draw the diagram. He again made so much fuss as follows;
a) Asked an ambassodor car to be picked up from Nanguneri to Valliyoor.

b) Pay him his fee of 3000 for survey

c) Pay him additional 4000 for a diagram.

Finally I got shabby piece of pencil drawing on a waste paper that i tore it off as soon as i received it in courier from my friend.  Even my baby kid will draw a better diagram. Anyway that is the way it is. It is clear that you should not approach any designer or engineer.

 

This was my grand plan. (However it did not workout subsequently as we will see......)


So I am on my own. Decided to draw it myself. I chose Visio and applied all my skills. I had nothing in front of me. Just with a survey diagram and photographs sent by my friend, I imagined, counted the pillars and drew near perfect diagram, which later my friend apprecaited.  This diagram gave me enough confiance and helped bridge communication gap between me and my manager.  It will also help me instruct over the phone clearly as we will see later......

One more thing, at every stage it is also required that some landscaping is done. Some left out areas have to be dressed properly. For this JCB and bulldozer were hired. Strictly this cannot be part of fencing cost (management brain fooling itself to believe so...), but neverthless they are mandatory.

Finally the fence is ready.