Concrete contributions

The concrete cut and chisel of B. E. Billimoria and Company Limited is spread across the Bombay landscape. Within a short time of its inception 43 years ago, the construction company secured a contract for the building of the aircraft maintenance hangar at Santa Cruz airport for Indian Airlines’ new Boeing 737s. Said to be the largest suspended roof structure in the world at that time, the construction was considered an engineering feat due to the limited technology and machinery then available in India, explains the company’s chairman and managing director Beji E. Billimoria who has been honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards from The Builders Association of India (BAI) and the Indian Concrete Institute. The honors were presented to Billimoria on January 11 at a function during BuildIndia 2003, an international trade fair and conference in Bombay.

Receiving particular recognition from the Institute was Billimoria’s contribution towards introducing lightweight aluminium formwork into India. "In this system, known as pre-engineered aluminium forms, a floor can go up every fourth day,” elaborates Billimoria. The homogeneous in-situ casting of slabs, columns, walls, stair treads, parapets, etc brings assembly line efficiency and results in highly durable structures, according to company sources. "You can construct buildings up to 30 stories using this system,” says Billimoria. Adds his son Kaiyoze, a chartered accountant who is a director in the company: "Aluminium formwork brings very good quality, at a very fast speed and at low cost. You don’t require skilled carpenters as the system dispenses with timber and plywood. The aluminium formwork bolts into position and can be done even by unskilled labor. But to use this, you need a large volume of repetitive work, as for hotels, hospitals or housing where the units are repeated again and again.”

Clockwise from top: Imax Dome Theatre; Konkan Railway bridge; Jamshed Bhabha Opera House

One of the B. E. Billimoria and Com­pany’s ongoing works is the mass housing project consisting of over 5,000 tenements (ground plus three and ground plus seven, including sanitary, plumbing and electrical work) for the Nagari Nivara Parishad in Goregaon. "Right from the 1980s we had been looking for an appropriate system to meet the demands of low cost housing,” explains Kaiyoze. "The technique was available in the East, but we were the first to bring it to India,” asserts septuagenarian Beji who laid the foundations of his company in partnership with Laxmidas Kapadia, a highly qualified and experienced civil engineer. "Not only has their business partnership endured over four decades, but their personal friendship has too,” explains Beji’s wife Meh­roo, adding that the two wives are the closest of friends as well! Laxmidas’ son Digan is also on the board of directors of the company.

Beji’s father Edulji was a director and general manager with Hindustan Construction Company and was one of the pioneering civil engineers of the country, responsible for many of the heavy engineering projects constructed in the early years after Independence, note company sources.

In a trade where timely completion, quality materials and workmanship spell success, B. E. Billimoria and Company’s recent structures have included the 25-storeyed Petit Tower standing sentinel in the compound of the Petit Sanatorium at Cumballa Hill, as well as additions and alterations to the existing Sanatorium and reconstruction of porches for the F. D. Petit Trust.

For the new five star Hyatt Regency Hotel on the Sahar Road near the international airport, Billimo­ria and Company has done not just the exteriors but much of the interior as well. "Except for the movable furniture, we have done a lot of the ‘embedded’ work in the rooms and bathrooms, as well as much of the glass and steel work,” elaborates Kaiyoze. "We are also looking at property development ventures.”

Beji Billimoria receiving Lifetime Achievement Award from Bombay municipal commissioner K. C. Srivastava and (right) Kaiyoze Billimoria

Wadala’s Imax Dome Theatre (the world’s largest, 39 meters in diameter and tilted to 30°, according to the company fact file), Andheri’s Super Speciality Heart Hospital and Medical Research Centre for the Mandke Foundation, the Infocomm Centre for the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City at New Bombay are part of their portfolio. Earlier ‘monumental’ successes have been the Jamshed Bhabha Opera House, bridges for the Konkan Railway, the Nehru Planetarium, the Wankhede Stadium and the IDBI (Industrial Development Bank of India) Towers for the World Trade Center at Cuffe Parade.

Adorning each of these Towers are 18-foot stained glass panels created and executed by Beji’s artistic daughters Binaifer Yuzud Karanjia and Jasmine Jehangir Jehangir. Asserts Karanjia: "Our stained glass work over the last 15 years has brought us in contact with leading architects and the one thing that has come across is that Billimoria and Company is known in the market for its honesty and integrity, for conforming exactly to the given specifications and for being very particular about adhering to time schedules.” Clients come back again and again to Billimoria and Company for their construction needs, remarks Mehroo.

With a wealth of experience in the Middle East and Africa, through their B. E. Billimoria and Company Private Limited which provides technical and management consultancy services abroad, the firm has in its construction photo album the Ramada Hotel and Emirates Bank building in Dubai, the Jumei­ra Textile Mills in Sudan and has been consultant for a $ 40 million housing complex for the Armed Forces Development Authority in Nigeria.

Having recently entered into a joint venture with construction giant Gammon India Limited with the formation of Gammon and Billimoria Limited, the firm is exploring the possibilities of future contracts in Dubai and Qatar, particularly with regard to the construction of stadia and games villages for the forthcoming Asian Games to be held for the first time in the Middle East in 2006. "The competition in the construction field today is intense. The industry operates in a totally buyers’ market,” declares Beji. "Companies can meet the challenge only by economies of scale. For example, Gammon doesn’t do buildings. We do. But Gammon has a larger pool of plant and machinery which can be used,” adds his son.

Beji is known to be an authority on the laws relating to building engineering contracts and contract management. Past chairperson of the Bombay chapter of the BAI, he is a senior and active member of the Association. Founder member and trustee and presently on the board of governors of NICMAR (National Institute of Construction Management and Research) in Bombay, Beji is also on the board of directors of Hyderabad’s National Academy of Construction.

Petit Tower (left) and mass housing for the Nagari Nivara Parishad

Admitted in 1999 as an affiliate member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in the UK, Beji served as pro-secretary general of the International Federation of Asian and Western Pacific Contractors’ Association at its 22nd convention at Sydney, Australia in 1986 and as secretary general at its 25th convention in Bombay five years later, according to a press release from the company.

Known to be a disciplinarian, Beji’s daughters commend their parents for the strict but fine upbringing not only of their own children but of their grandchildren as well! "My 15-year-old daugh­ter Freyaan has a ‘mystical bond’ with her grandfather,” smiles Binaifer. "As a baby she would be howling with pain as she was lactose intolerant, but as soon as Daddy stepped into the house and picked her up she would stop crying!” Recalling her childhood Jehangir says she remembers even today her father reciting his prayers aloud every day. "He prays more clearly than many a mobed,” she remarks. From an athor­nan family, as a boy Beji had learnt all the prayers required for his initiation into navarhood, but had not been ordained as a priest. Kaiyoze, however, is a navar and has performed the navjotes of his nieces and nephews, the last one a few months ago, say his sisters. The aroma of sukhad-loban wafts daily through the Billimoria household.

The family prefers to keep a low profile and Beji declines to be drawn into discussion about the community of his birth and its current numerous controversies! Putting in a full day’s work at the office even at the age of 76, Beji visualizes an overall improvement in the construction trade following higher client and customer expectations. The experienced builder predicts that smaller companies may find it difficult to survive and mergers or acquisitions may become more the order of the day on the Indian construction scape.