Internship with ULCCS - Uralungal Labour Contract Co-operative society

About the company

The Uralungal Labour Contract Co-operative Society (ULCCS) Ltd is one of India's oldest labour cooperative societies, owned and managed by workers. This society works on infrastructure development and management projects, completing many projects for Kerala State Government departments like Finance, Cooperation, Local Self-Government, Labour Department, Information Technology, Tourism, and Public Works Department (PWD). The society has completed 7500+ projects in the construction field. The projects include the construction of roads, bridges, commercial buildings, and flyovers.

My experience

ULCCS Ltd came to our campus around the last week of February to provide summer internships to four of our students in B.Tech Civil Engineering for two months. The selection process was based on the resume and CGPA till the fifth semester.

My internship was in offline mode as the company belongs to the Construction and Engineering industry. I got my internship details (project, location, duration, and stipend) around the last week of May. The internship duration was from 2nd June 2022 to 31st July 2022. I got allotted to the project Upgradation of Alappuzha Changanaserry (AC) Road into the semi-elevated highway. The project's value is about 649 crores. I felt very happy listening to the project value as I got the opportunity to deal with a huge project for experience. I was excited that I would also get to explore Kerala as it was my first visit to Kerala. This project included the construction of various structures like bridges, flyovers, causeways, box culverts, drains & ducts, and road development. The company guided me to reach the exact location and provided accommodation on a payment basis near the project office in Moncombu.

On the very first day, we were introduced to all the employees in the office, along with the Construction Manager, Senior Structural Engineer, and Senior Project Manager. They explained all the basic details of the project, and after listening to the timings that I would be working, I was astonished! The working time was from 07:30 am to 05:30 pm with a break of two hours in between for breakfast and lunch. We had to work from Monday to Saturday (Sunday was given as leave for the interns, but it was a working day for the employees). The company provided breakfast and lunch. For dinner, I managed by cooking at night on the induction stove. After that, they provided me with a jacket, safety helmet, and a safety induction program to make me aware of the dos and don'ts at a construction site. Since the project consists of many structures, I was allotted to different structure every week to get complete exposure to the project.

The construction manager allotted me to work on the below-mentioned structures every week.

• Week 1: Major Bridge
• Week 2: Road Development
• Week 3: Quality Control
• Week 4: Reinforcement Yard
• Week 5: Surveying
• Week 6: Estimation and Rate Analysis (Quantity Survey)
• Week 7: Flyovers
• Week 8: Planning and management

Out of these, on week 1,2,4,5, I worked on the construction site. During the remaining weeks, I worked in the office. After working in both the office and construction sites, I understood that construction sites provide good exposure to construction activities. I enjoyed working on the construction site compared to office work. I also felt that working on the construction site was hectic as the site engineer was responsible for taking care of the construction activities to happen at the correct time to complete that structure in the scheduled time.

My daily activities working on the site included the inspection of the reinforcements of slab, crash barriers, and piers from the drawings provided, writing the field reports like preparing BBS(Bar Bending Schedule), Stressing report, and noting the progress of everyday activities on the site to report to the construction manager. During the work, I felt a little depressed as I was required to inspect around 400m distance (the typical length of the construction site as it is a road project) by walking for the whole day from one end to the other. Also I used to have my breakfast and lunch along with the labourers on the construction site on the side of the road. It was the first time I ate food on the road below the hot sun where the people on the roads saw us weirdly eating food.

My daily activities in the office included learning the project's scheduling, controlling the structure's quality, and estimating the budget for every structure. This was not that interesting compared to the construction site as it was not providing me with good exposure to the construction activities. But this office work included what I learned in the college curriculum. The only good thing in the office is that I got good food for breakfast and lunch, sitting at the table and eating.

Overall I would say that I gained industry knowledge related to construction as it included almost all of the structures in the construction industry. I am happy that I gained clarity on what to do in my career with this internship experience at ULCCS Ltd. I am thankful to Career Development Center and ULCCS Ltd for providing me with this opportunity.