Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

Everyone looked at each other with confusion, especially the big shots in the front row, as even they, who have a wide range of contacts, could not recognise the man.

Karunanidhi was nervous, being the center of attention of so many people all of a sudden, but thinking about the huge responsibility placed on him by His Majesty, he forcefully suppressed his trembling body and started to speak with a determined expression.

"Hello, everyone. Not many of you know me, but my name is Karunanidhi. I am currently the dean of the Bharatiya Institute of Map Sciences, which is an institute that specialises in dealing with and mapping out various geographies and terrains, be it land, water, or the sky." Karunanidhi felt like the last point would confuse a lot of people, so he quickly explained, "Mapping the sky in the sense of deriving various patterns from the position of the stars, like the constellations."

A few people raised their eyebrows in realisation.

Karunanidhi felt a lot better as he continued, "So, for the two mega projects, let me briefly explain them so all of you can get a solid outline of our tasks."

"Let's start with the canal project."

Karunanidhi quickly asked a few people to pull up the map he had prepared.

The audience curiously looked at the magnified image of the map, which focused on the states of Cheranadu and Cholapuri.

Ravi Shetty began to stroke his chin in contemplation as he started to get an idea of what the project would look like.

Pawan Kalyan was the same, as he immediately started to draw a rough sketch in his own notebook about the project.

"Mhm."

Clearing his throat, Karunanidhi continued, "So, as all of you can see on the map, there is a line cutting through the states of Cheranadu and Cholapuri." He pointed it out with a ruler.

"This line is the canal we are going to construct, and the reason why the line is in two colours is because of the nature of the construction, which differs in different parts."

"The line drawn in blue means the canal is in a place where the river is located. Our job is to widen the riverbed and deepen the river. Consequently, the line drawn in red marks the actual area where we have to manually dig the canal in order to connect the three rivers."

The eyebrows of some of the audience lit up in sudden realization.

Karunanidhi changed to another map, and this time the map looked a little unrecognizable. It had all sorts of circle lines around it, which made a lot of people confused, but the people from the top construction companies immediately recognized this map as the elevation map of the terrain.

"This map is called the elevation map. You can see the elevation of a certain area with this map," Karunanidhi said, clearing the doubts of many people. "So, as you can see in this map, the state of Cheranadu is encompassed by the Western Ghats on its east, making it almost impossible to build a canal. However, fortunately, due to God's gift, there is a break in this Western Ghats mountain range, which we call the Palakkad Gap—the gap between the northern part of the Western Ghats and the eastern part of the Western Ghats. And as coincidence would have it, a river called Bharathappuzha also flows through this Palakkad Gap, making it a natural waterway into the interior of the southern part of the Bharatiya Empire from the state of Cheranadu."

"Now, the first part of the canal is the Bharathappuzha River, which flows from the Arabian Sea inland up to the Palakkad Gap. The river covers the first 68 kilometres of the canal, and from here we will have to manually build the canal up to the city of Coimbatore, 54 kilometres away. From Coimbatore, digging another 108 kilometres, we reach the city of Velur. And from the city of Velur, our digging work officially ends, as the canal will be directly connected to the river Cauvery, which flows from the state of Vijayanagara. The Cauvery River is then connected to the Kollidam River in the city of Tiruchirappalli, which then flows through the major cities of Kumbakonam and finally Chidambaram, at the Bay of Bengal."

"The total distance of the canal is around 456 kilometres, out of which only the 162 kilometres require manual digging of the canal, while the rest is naturally covered by the rivers, making our job easier."

Karunanidhi took a breather, but upon seeing the easy expressions on the faces of many people, his expression turned serious.

"However, don't underestimate this project because digging the actual canal is the easy part, while widening the river and deepening it is the hard part."

"Currently, according to the standards put forward by the Ministry of Standards, the canal is specified to reach a width of 100 meters and a depth of 14 meters. The specification for width Is only met 100 percent by the Cauvery River, while the other two rivers have to undergo the process of widening in some parts. However, the specifications for depth are not met by the majority of the river surface."

"So, manual digging has to take place."

"For this reason, along with the canal, we will also have to construct hundreds of water conservancy facilities to temporarily hold the water. In the construction plan, there are also six massive dams upstream of the Cauvery River to reduce the water flow. To avoid the risk of flooding near these dams, additional water conservancy facilities and water diversion channels must be established. Overall, a lot of work has to be done just to even get the opportunity to work on the canal and the rivers."

"All in all, we have to do anything possible in order to reduce the water volume in the main stretch of the river. So now, all of you know how difficult it is, considering that the Cauvery River is one of the most important and largest rivers in the southern part of the empire."

Everyone in the auditorium nodded their heads with serious expressions on their faces; they now realized that they had underestimated the difficulty.

Karunanidhi was satisfied with their seriousness, but he didn't want to make the project seem too hopeless, so he went on to offer some hope. "No need for such serious faces, there is nothing to worry about. Utilizing all the intellectual resources of the empire, we have already come up with a detailed plan to divert the river water to its many tributaries and to work on deepening the riverbed only during the dry seasons of the river. That means every year, we get an average of three months to give it our all to deepen the riverbed."

"And considering that we have an abundant labour force, it is not a problem to involve ten to fifteen million people in this single project."

Everyone thought for a while and nodded their heads in agreement.

Karunanidhi motioned for the helper to take away the map and replace it with another one.

Everyone immediately knew that this was the second mega project: the railway network construction project. They looked on with curiosity on their faces.

"Although in volume, this project might occupy more resources than the canal project at most times, its complexity is actually not that great, so let me briefly explain."

"According to the map, you can see dotted lines of different colours, and these dotted lines represent the internal state railway tracks that have to be laid down."

"Now, according to the standards stipulated by the Ministry of Standards, a railway track is a simple one-way path with the same specifications as a standard one-lane road, but instead of cement, the road is covered by gravel on the top."

"And on top of the gravel, a pair of wooden blocks called sleepers are laid down every few centimetres."

"And these sleepers are placed repeatedly, parallel to each other, throughout the path from Point A to Point B."

"So, technically speaking, this is all there is to a railway track," Karunanidhi said.

This surprised a lot of people.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Is that all?"

"So simple?"

"What's the use of this track anyway?"

Doubts began to arise, but fortunately, Karunanidhi went on to clarify, "What you will be building is only the foundation of a railway track, not the actual railway track. The actual railway track is constructed with steel, so covering such a large area with rails is expensive. This is a long-term project, so your current part is only to lay the foundation for the track, that is, clear out the shrubs and vegetation in the area marked on the map, build all the infrastructure necessary for the railway track to go through, whether it is a bridge or a tunnel, and finally lay down the gravel and the sleepers."

Although everyone felt the technical content in this project was still too little, no one complained anymore since, clearly, this railway project is a larger project than the canal project, making it more important.

Karunanidhi took up his marker once again. "The dotted tracks represent the internal railway network of all the different states in the empire. The straight gradient pink coloured railway tracks represent the outer state railway tracks; those are the railway tracks connecting one state to another. And finally, the purple railway tracks represent the core or backbone railway tracks that connect all the railway networks together."

"In total, adding the whole beam of internal, external, and central railway tracks together, 13,852 kilometres worth of railway tracks need to be laid down."

Karunanidhi finally completed his long seminar. He looked around to see if anyone had any doubts, and after seeing that no one stood up, he heaved a sigh of relief and got off the stage.

Finally, at last, Vinod spoke out.

"Now everyone should briefly understand what the project is about. In order to manage the projects, I have set up a temporary department in the government called the Mega Project Management Department. This department will not only be responsible for issuing the tenders to various companies, but it will also be responsible for hosting all the necessary resources required for the construction."

"For example, the people from the Bharatiya Academy of Map Sciences will be available in this new department to help any construction company with their queries regarding terrain. Prof. Sanjeev Bansari will be personally available along with his team to help any construction company with problems related to water diversion, water conservancy, and other issues. Prof. Chaitanya, an expert in water-related infrastructure, will also be available throughout the project to help any company in constructing any sort of water-related infrastructure. Finally, a direct connection will be established with the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of Communication, and the Ministry of Finance in order to solve the problems related to logistics, communication, and payments."

"Mega Project Management Department will now be your one-stop solution for all your construction-related problems, saving both your time and the government's time."

Vinod looked at the hourglass in the corner of the auditorium.

"It's midday, and it's time for lunch. Please have your meals and come back. The tenders will be issued shortly after lunch."

"Thank you," Vinod said as he got down from the stage and left the auditorium.

The owners of various construction companies broke out into loud discussions, excitement on their faces.

They immediately realized that there was actually no trouble in having no work. Instead, looking at the scale of the two projects, they felt like there was too much work.

A lot of people immediately broke out with great ambition, seeing the juicy opportunity for expansion right in front of them. Even the top construction companies in the empire, like Shetty Construction Company and Kalyan Construction Company, were immediately excited, as this was an opportunity for them to go beyond the first great construction company and form a league of their own.

Pawan Kalyan's and Ravi Shetty's eyes burned brightly with eagerness and determination.

The construction boom of the Bharatiya Empire once again rolled out, more intense than ever before in the history of the subcontinent.

P.S. I will attach images in the comments it is highly recommended to watch.