8th February 1659


    Akhand Bharatiya Empire


    Two days after the tender conference was held, the results were officially announced through the *Bharatam Daily* newspaper.


    The article written about the projects attracted a lot of attention and unsurprisingly caused a huge wave of repercussions throughout the empire.


    The reaction from all walks of life to the megaprojects was intense and exciting to witness. For the projects, all the resources of the empire were mobilized without any reservation, including crucial support from the Ministries of Finance, Transportation, and Communication.


    With the tender conference officiallypleted and all the constructionpanies formally receiving their contracts, several measures were immediately implemented by the ministries to ensure the smooth execution of the megaprojects. For a limited time until the projects werepleted, the emergencyne on highways throughout the empire was designated for the transportation of construction materials. The emergencyne was shifted to the thirdne, and the number ofnes avable for civilian transportation was decreased. Although this led to short-term congestion, it did not cause significant adverse effects. In fact, in the long run, this move increased the speed of construction and prevented catastrophic traffic jams.


    The Ministry of Communication immediately reduced the cost ofmunication between different Arkha Dristhimunication stations to facilitate project coordination. Meanwhile, the Finance Department set up a dedicated response team and assigned separate personnel to eachrgepany to handle financial matters rted to the projects.


    The Mega Project Management Department had officially be the highest governing body overseeing both the canal construction project and the railwaywork project.


    With all these changes happening right before their eyes, the migrants were overjoyed. They finally realized thating to the South had not been a mistake.


    ---


    The city of Mumbai


    A huge wave of recruitment is underway in a corner of the city, with migrants from all over the urban region pouring into these recruitment points established by various constructionpanies.


    "JD Construction Company is looking for 3,000 workers. Boarding and lodging provided, along with a sry of 150 Varaha per month. Please sign up quickly."


    "SMG Construction Company is looking for 900borers. Boarding and lodging are provided, along with a sry of 150 Varaha per month."


    "Frontier Construction Firm is looking for skilled craftsmen, whether in carpentry, woodworking, masonry, or any other practical construction skill. Boarding and lodging are provided, with only three people per room and high-quality food three times a day. The sry ranges from 250 to 400 Varaha per month. Interested individuals, please sign up and participate in the interview."


    The representatives from thepanies shouted at the top of their lungs, trying their best to be heard over the shouts of the migrants swarming towards them. If someone were to witness this scene, they might mistake it for a gang violence incident. Fortunately, the chaotic atmosphere was soon brought under control by the police officers, who were promptly informed of the situation by the locals.


    This excitement was present not only in Mumbai but also in various major cities in the southern part of the empire, as most of the migrants were concentrated in the cities looking for jobs.


    Various constructionpanies took this opportunity to snap up as muchbour force as possible, especially considering that they were still unsure if the southern part of the empire would continue to receive the massive influx ofbour like it had over the past few months.


    The constructionpanies that had won tenders for various sections of the railway construction project mainly recruited strong and illiterate migrants, as not much skill was involved. However, ambitiouspanies like the Frontier Construction Firm recruited skilledbour from the north, as they had won tenders for some of the more challenging sectors of the project—especially for tasks such as building bridges, tunnelling for the railway tracks, or participating in the construction of water infrastructure projects for the Great Tri-Nadhi Canal Project.


    With the hundreds of constructionpanies going out in full force, the eight-plus-million excessivebour force that had been acting as a hindrance and friction to society was immediately absorbed by the construction industry, like a sponge absorbing water. The Bharatiya Empire''s economy, which had beengging slightly due to friction in the joints like a big block engine without lubrication, transformed into a pristine supercharged engine working at full efficiency without any hups.


    The people living in the city also felt much better walking around, as they no longer had to see hundreds of people propping up tents and lying on their beautiful roadways.


    Even the economy was hugely stimted by these construction projects and by the nearly 1.1 billion Varaha that had been poured into them.


    The profits of various cementpanies skyrocketed almost immediately. A massive expansion took ce in the construction materials industry, and the same urred for the steel industry. Bhaskaracharya, the general manager of the royal family''s assets, noticing the changes in the market situation, decisively invested 25 million Varaha to expand the scale of iron and steel production into the Raya Steel Company. Almost immediately, the construction of 50 st furnaces was initiated.


    Construction tools like hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, measuring tapes, utility knives, hand saws, hand-operated drills, circr saws, chisels, concrete mixers,dders, sledgehammers, wheelbarrows, rails, hand-operated angle grinders, and other items were selling like hotcakes.


    As a consequence,panies manufacturing professional construction tools experienced unprecedented growth as the market''s demand for construction machinery surged to levels never seen before.


    The demand was sorge that the prices of construction equipment shot up by 30% almost immediately, showing a trend of continuing to rise.


    To bring this under control, the Raya Mining Company and Bhonsle Mining Company had to increase the rate at which iron ore was mined and processed. Fortunately, with the expansion of the Raya Steel Company, prices soon began to return to normal, and due to the increased scale, prices even decreased by 3 to 6 percent.


    The carriage-building industry also experienced a huge boom as the demand for reinforced carriages required for construction increased exponentially.


    Within the span of February alone, 35,000 military-grade reinforced carriages were sold by the Aakash Carriages Company, one of the top-ranking carriagepanies in the empire.


    Putting aside the direct beneficiaries of the mega projects, the sub-industries involved in the projects also gained significant benefits. One of the main examples in this scenario is the timber industry. Due to the demand for high-quality wood required by the carriages, the sleepers on the railway tracks, the tools in the construction industry, and the naval industry, which was also in a state of rapid expansion, the timber industry experienced blowout growth.


    The whole state of Ahom in particr, experienced unprecedented economic stimtion. The prices of timber rose by almost 50% in the month of February alone. Unfortunately, unlike iron ore, timber cannot be mined indefinitely, so Vijay couldn''t push Ahom''s timber merchants to expand production scales by a few hundred percent to bring down the price.


    However, despite not being able to expand the scale of timber production indefinitely, the timber merchants of Ahom made significant profits for themselves.n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om


    Aside from the heavy industries that benefited greatly from the mega-scale infrastructure project, the light industries and local economies were also hugely stimted.


    ording to the regtions stipted by the Ministry of Standards, everybourer was required to identify themselves in bright yellow clothes to avoid idents and to wear hard hats as a safety precaution.


    Due to yellow fabric being rtively more expensive than cheaper alternatives, and a hard hat requiring precision machining on arge scale, a full kit for aborer cost upwards of 50 Varaha. Given that millions ofborers were already employed for the megaprojects, the textile industry experienced a significant surge in profits.


    This was especially true for the top yers in the industry, such as Bakshi Textiles, Gauri Shankar Textiles, and Singh Textiles, who all had both financial resources and the means to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for expansion.


    Apart from the textile industry, the catering industry was one of the industries that experienced unexpected growth. Before the mega construction projects started, the catering industry was not even considered an industry; there wasn''t a formal or structured development path for it.


    However, with the two megaprojects starting simultaneously, professionals in the field, like Deshmukh Industrial Caterers, Anna Datha Catering Service, Bheema Caterers, M and M Fast Food, and a dozen or so other cateringpanies who were ustomed to small-scale catering for events or special asions in variouspanies, immediately seized the opportunity toe together and provide catering services in a unified manner. An organisation called Southern Bharat Catering Collective Organisation was also formed.


    Previously, constructionpany owners used to hire their own cooks and maintain a kitchen department within theirpanies to serve food to their employees. However, after the Frontier Construction Firm took the initiative topletely disband its kitchen department and fully outsource food preparation to an outside catering service, it was found that this approach not only eliminated the need toply with food safety requirements mandated by the BSO but also saved the hassle of managing an additional safety hazard within thepany. This meant one less department falling under the radar of the stringent BSO inspections. Although these requirements are not difficult to meet under normal circumstances, the nature of construction work often requires personnel to stay in areas where maintaining hygiene is particrly challenging.


    Even if the various constructionpany owners locate their kitchens elsewhere, theirck of control over these kitchens further increases the risks associated with unsupervised kitchens. Adding to this, when the workers of the Frontier Construction Firm began to praise the quality of their food, and outsiders observed that these workers had clearly higher efficiency, the industrial model of the catering industry as a supporting sector to the construction industry gradually took root.


    To further make their product more appealing, the catering industry began offering monthly packages to constructionpanies, with payments made on a monthly basis and only upon consumer satisfaction. The prices were also very affordable, costing just 5 Varaha per meal per worker, which was much lower than the cost of cooking meals in-house.


    This further prompted the constructionpanies to transition to outside catering services andpletely disband the internal kitchen departments.


    The low prices were made possible because various cateringpanies unified their kitchens, enabling bulk procurement from local agriculturalpanies at reduced costs. Moreover, a single logistics channel was established to handle the delivery of goods for all the cateringpanies. Additionally, cooking was done in batches of thousands of portions, which further reduced production costs.


    All of the food was cooked by professional chefs employed by the catering group from the infamous Booka Yuddha Street in Hampi. To reassure constructionpany owners about food safety, the catering group employed an inspector from the Bharatiya Standards Organisation, who was permanently stationed in the unified kitchen areas at various construction sites to ensure hygiene in food preparation.


    With all these advantages, the Southern Bharat Catering Collective Organization, an entityposed of various cateringpanies from the southern part of the empire, had be a behemoth in the catering industry, leaving no room forpetition.


    Originally, things were not like this. It all began with the brilliant mind of Purusottam Deshmukh, a young graduate from the Bharatiya Institute of Technology with a major in industrial production. After graduating, Purusottam took over the hotel established by his father and expanded it, making it bigger and more efficient by applying the industrial production methods he had learned at the university. He sessfully transformed the small hotel into a cateringpany serving small-scale industrial enterprises on special asions.


    Thepany was on a stable growth trajectory from then but nothing too drastic,


    However, as luck would have it, on February 7th, the full details of the Mega Projects were announced in the newspaper. While reading the newspaper, Purusottam immediately sensed an opportunity for growth. He instinctively realized that the feeding capabilities of constructionpanies would not be able to keep up with the rapidly growing workforce. He knew this was his opportunity, but unfortunately, hecked both the capital and resources to take advantage of it.


    He knew that he needed some help, so he went on a hunt thatsted for a whole week, in the end, after extensive research, he came across two brothers from Baluchistan, Matheen and Masthan, who owned multiple fast food restaurants in the city of Mangaluru under the name M and M Fast Food. Purusottam felt that the brothers'' expertise in industrialized food production would greatly benefit his cause. Fortunately, when he reached out, he was met with enthusiasm rather than rejection. The brothers found his idea intriguing and agreed to coborate.


    Combining the brothers'' practical expertise in fast food preparation and with his knowledge of industrial production, Purusottam devised a moreprehensive n.


    But his n was too big for him to do alone. Even adding the M and M foodpany wasn''t enough, so he made up his mind and invited all the cateringpanies he knew, proposing a deal tobine all thebour capabilities and open unified kitchens for the construction sites.


    Although many people were unwilling to do this initially, as time went by, those who did not agree to the n saw their orders decreasing, while the orders for Purusottam''s and the M and M foodpany''s orders continued to increase. So in the end, they had no choice but to join the shared resource n.


    This phenomenon was immediately brought to the attention of Vijay, and after looking through the details of the Southern Bharat Catering Collective, Vijay was left immediately impressed.


    This was the first time he had seen such a model of catering service, even from hisst life. In this inquiry, Vijay also discovered the M and M foodpany, apany that had the most simrity with KFC, Burger King, McDonald''s, and other fast-food giants from hisst life.


    So Vijay decisively made an investment in the M and M foodpany and helped the brothers Matheen and Masthan in their expansion.


    Overall, as a consequence of the Mega Projects, whether directly or indirectly, the Bharatiya Empire was experiencing breakout growth in all sectors of society.


    The disaster of excessbor suddenly turned into the greatest blessing and the strongest foundation for the Bharatiya Empire to officially kick off the process of the Industrial Revolution.


    P.S. Watched the movie Kanguva Today,


    Review: 3/10, It Gave me a fking Headache so only 1