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Building Infrastructure & Image
How do you describe a constructor businessman? “A busy person when there is work and very busy when there is no work.” That is at least how Ramesh Sharma, one of the country’s ace construction entrepreneurs, describes his profession. “When there is work, we have to pay attention only on the work, but when there is no work we have go round placing bids and negotiating the terms of the contract.”
Sharma & Co. (P) Ltd. that Ramesh Sharma heads now as its Managing Director, was founded way back in early 1960 by his father and, according to him, it is the first Nepali company to qualify for the projects funded by international donor agencies like The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Initially it was only in the construction of houses, but now it has diversified also into the construction of roads and bridges.
But Sharma’s entry into this business was out of a compulsion rather than volition. As he recalls, this business till recently was not considered prestigious. Both the society and the government officials used to look down on it. And he says he had seen the pain that his father had undergone because of the treatment meted out to him by the society and the government officials. “That is the reason why major business houses of the country are still not into this business, and not many people are staying long in this business, though this is the business of nation building and its contribution for the development of the country is very valuable,” he points out.
So, when Sharma returned Nepal after getting an MBA degree from Philippines in 1985, he took up a job in the Agricultural Projects Services Centre (APROSC), a state-owned consultancy company specialized in agriculture sector (now dissolved). But after two years he had to leave APROSC to take up the responsibility of managing the construction company as he father suffered a serious heart attack.
And it was not so difficult for young Sharma to manage the new job as he had been involved in the company also during his adolescence helping his father in various aspects of office management.
After taking up the mantle from his father to manage the company, Sharma introduced two types of changes. One, he expanded the business into construction work in the infrastructural projects like roads, bridges etc. while the company earlier was limited to construction of buildings. Second, he introduced structural changes within the company itself, creating different specialized units and divisions for specified jobs. As the work with infrastructural projects involved frequent interaction with the donor agencies, it helped to further enhance the image of the company, thus removing one of the inhibitions of young Sharma in entering this business.
But Sharma did not limit himself to uplifting the image of his own company alone. So, one of the contributions of Sharma that he particularly likes to mention is in the improvement of the image of the contractors. So when he took the mantle of his company from his father, he joined fellow contractors to form an association which was later turned into a federation of which he became the founder president. During his tenure, he organized an international conference of contractors in Nepal and worked to bring out the Construction Law. “Though our international partners were advising against it as it was going to impose various government controls on this business, we went ahead with this and pressed the government to bring it out as we felt that it was necessary to improve the image of the profession,” he says.
The association later pressed the government to bring out Housing Law in which Sharma also played an instrumental role.
Regarding the complaint of the people against the construction companies for the substandard work, he claims that no such complaints are there on the work done by his company. As for the general perception, he views that fresh engineers should not be allowed to work as engineers unless they pass another examination by Engineers’ Council. The logic behind this idea is that many engineering colleges these days have gone for quantity than for quality, he says. “Such testing is the practice followed elsewhere, such as Philippines. Even in Nepal, this is the practice in other professions, such as in medicine where a fresh medical college graduate is not allowed to practise unless he passes the test conducted by the Medical Council,” he points out. Though there was one such effort made by the Engineers’ Council also in Nepal, that was thwarted by an order by the court. And no further efforts have been made in this regard.
A charter member of Rotary Club of Tripureshwor and now its Immidate Past President, Sharma is keenly interested and involved in social welfare activities.
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