New energy, new life: Deepak Gupta
The next few years of India’s economic growth will be powered by legacy energy conglomerates like GAIL India. As a Director (Projects), Deepak Gupta is pulling out all the stops to make the natural gas company ready for the future.
As a public sector undertaking (PSU), the 40-year-old GAIL India has a strong footing in the Indian natural gas segment. But just like any sprawling conglomerate, there’s always room to be more efficient and streamlined in its operations.
Deepak Gupta was introduced to GAIL’s boardroom in 2022 to implement gas pipeline projects and improve gas distribution network connectivity. Before joining the company, Gupta oversaw refinery and petrochemical projects at Engineers India Limited spanning across Nigeria and India. He finally moved to take over GAIL’s pipeline expansion plans, along with LPG production facilities and GAILTEL, which maintains the optical fiber cable (OFC) network.
"We have conducted industry meets with our business partners to understand their requirements and challenges."
"Since I’m in a client organization and my previous role was in project management consultancy, now when I look at it from a client’s perspective, I’m able to actually contribute to getting the projects done in a timely manner," Gupta tells The CEO Magazine.
"It’s because we understand the nuances of not only project management but also of other key areas such as contracts and procurement, operation and maintenance."
Now that he has more control and better visibility across projects, Gupta can freely implement his vision.
Operational efficiency
First, he focused on the timely execution and delivery of projects. Considering the number of touchpoints and stakeholders in GAIL’s large-scale projects, fast-tracking them to completion was a challenge worth taking.
"Everybody who’s involved in the project, from its conceptualization until commissioning, has got a clear-cut agenda and responsibility. This means the major part of the front availability, which is key to a project’s success, is ensured within the first few months of project implementation," Gupta explains.
Fast-tracking projects leads to a smoother handover to operation and maintenance teams, who then know what to do and expect in terms of paperwork and documentation.
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Gupta reveals that GAIL has 12,000 kilometers of OFC network and a state-of-the-art supervisory control and data acquisition system for real-time monitoring of GAIL’s natural gas pipeline network.
"We are in the process of implementing a dashboard to observe and manage the complete gas portfolio of GAIL – from its sourcing to allocation and distribution to various customers," Gupta says.
And that’s not the end of it. On the sustainability front, Gupta is overseeing a pilot project for hydrogen production, a small-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility to convert stranded gas fields to LNG at source, and research on compressed biogas – all the while racing to meet the company’s net zero goals by 2035.
In terms of his projects, Gupta feels right at home. But more than projects, Gupta believes the employee outreach following the COVID-19 pandemic is the highlight of his tenure so far.
"After I took over, the pandemic was behind us. So I traveled to almost all of GAIL’s locations across the country and met all the employees and their families," he says.
This helped the company understand the difficulties faced by employees and address them systemically.
Mutual trust
A recurring theme of Gupta’s stint at GAIL is that of corporate governance. He leverages GAIL’s reputation to foster trust and transparency with vendors and partners. This is most visible in contracting and procurement, where system alignment, government mandates and equitable contracts help the natural gas giant expand its reach.
"We have conducted industry meets with our business partners to understand their requirements and challenges," Gupta explains. "When we meet them, we always ensure that in all our discussions, our customers and our vendors are our focal points."
GAIL gains a lot through these interactions. First, sharing knowledge and subject matter expertise helps GAIL fine-tune its tender documents. Second, it helps the company measure partner capabilities for complex projects and third, it prevents surprises from derailing projects later.
"In all our discussions, our customers and our vendors are our focal points."
Even though gas supply partnerships are the most critical to GAIL, the company also requires consultancy services, technology for new petrochemical projects, original equipment manufacturers for maintenance, inspection services for equipment and administration services for revenue departments, among others.
"I would say all the long-term sourcing contracts are GAIL’s strategic partnerships," Gupta says. "We have a strong portfolio of subsidiaries, joint ventures and associates spread across the country to expand our reach and build strategic partnerships to take up new projects."
Lasting relationships
"When we talk of mutual trust, it is important to continuously engage with all our business partners through dialogues and meetings to resolve issues and provide solutions to various bottlenecks that they encounter or we encounter," Gupta says. "So it is a relationship that goes hand in hand."
These partnerships help Gupta to supply clean and safe energy to far-flung areas of the country and the best way to know if it’s working is to look at satisfaction charts. Collecting feedback on the system, appreciating all the good work the employees do and transferring that satisfaction to end customers has helped GAIL hold its own amid the energy revolution.
As a responsible PSU, Gupta wants the company’s core values, such as integrity and ethics, to be at the center of everything it does. The Indian government has a target of raising the share of natural gas in the energy mix from six percent today to 15 percent by 2030. Gupta says GAIL will leave no stone unturned to meet customers’ demands and the energy needs of the country.