I am a master in India

Chapter 176 Work Stoppage
Ron has returned to Uttar Pradesh, this time traveling light with only Anil and a few bodyguards.

This is his hometown, his base of operations, the place where his family and connections are located, and it's even safer than Mumbai.

His second uncle, Adiya, picked him up from the airport. Instead of returning to the village, they went directly to a construction site in the southern suburbs of Varanasi.

This place was originally a wasteland where crops were illegally planted. After Ron bought it, Adiya and his men unceremoniously drove away the nearby farmers.

The lush green crops were destroyed, and bulldozers and road rollers took turns to replace them with brown, flat, and solid mud.

Then hundreds of dark-skinned, thin workers gathered here, carrying bamboo baskets on their heads to carry away the rubble they had turned over in the ground.

Clever vendors set up tea stalls by the roadside, and their tea business is always booming in the sweltering summer.

However, the bustling scene didn't last long before the construction site seemed to be put on pause.

The yellow construction vehicles were no longer roaring, and the workers were scattered around, seeking shade under the trees.

Some squatted there chewing betel nuts, some chatted idly by the tea stalls, and some simply lay down on the mud to sleep.

The tea shop has plastic chairs for customers, but the workers are not allowed to sit on them.

Those were reserved for the "big shots" on the construction site, who could only huddle in the corner, hunched over and squatting on the ground, just like the servants that can be seen everywhere in India.

The car arrived, and the horn blared incessantly.

The pigs and stray dogs that had been roaming near the teahouse were thrown into chaos and scattered in all directions.

The wind whipped up by the car carried dust, sand, and dried pig manure into the teahouse, and the driver in the front seat, wearing a khaki uniform, slammed on the brakes.

He seemed somewhat smug about the chaos he had caused. After giving the workers outside a defiant glare, he jogged out of the car to open the doors for his owners, Adiya and Ron.

The surrounding workers were extremely envious of the driver's khaki uniform.

For them, becoming a servant in a wealthy family was the pinnacle of their lives, a true triumph.

A fat man walked out of the teahouse, carrying a notebook. He had lost all his hair, revealing a patchy scalp.

This guy's nickname is Wild Boar. He not only manages all the workers here, but he is also in charge of supervising the entire construction site.

If you want to make a living in this area, you have to bow deeply to him, touch the mud in front of his slippers, and swallow your pride and agree to let him take your rent every day.

Every time he drove past a woman, he would stop his car, roll down the window, and grin.

When he laughs, his mouth opens wide, revealing two long teeth below his nostrils, the tips of which are slightly curved, making him look just like a wild boar's tusks.

The workers were all afraid of wild boars; whenever one bared its tusks, they would tremble with fear.

They never knew that wild boars could laugh so harmlessly, with such a fawning, ugly laugh.

It also bares its teeth, but not in a fierce way; rather, it's ingratiating.

If wild boars really had tails, they would be wagging their tails high in the sky right now.

"Mr. Sue!" He practically scrambled forward to greet him.

“Wild Boar, did Chada say when we can resume work?” Adiya stood there, giving him a curt look.

"Mr. Suer, very soon! As soon as the cement arrives, the workers will start working immediately, day and night!"

"Where are the steel bars?"

"The steel reinforcement is coming very quickly too!"

"What about electricity?"

"Electricity? Electricity is fast too! Very fast!" The wild boar smiled obsequiously the whole time, as if it were wearing a mask.

"You made the same promise a week ago, and you're still spouting this nonsense today!" Adiya was furious.

“Mr. Suer, please don’t rush. Let’s go to the tea shop for a cup of tea first, and also this young master.”

The wild boar diligently led the way, chasing away the nearby workers and wiping the plastic stools next to the table again and again.

“The project has been delayed for far too long. I’m going to call Chada today. If he doesn’t want to do this business, he can just give it to someone else,” Adiya grumbled.

"Oh my, we, Waves, are the strongest construction company in Uttar Pradesh, you know that!" Wild Boar seemed quite frightened, but those who knew him knew that this was mostly an act.

A portrait of Gandhi hung on the wall of the teahouse. The owner casually kicked aside the day laborer smashing coal nearby and warmly invited everyone to sit down.

Beside the table was a black iron pot, and a waiter was slowly stirring the sugar water that was simmering over a low flame with a large ladle.

“Ron, you see, the construction site is lacking everything.” Adiya said, looking a little troubled.

When building the dam, there was a shortage of building materials, but he wasn't in a hurry.

When it was his turn, he panicked.

Because this is my own project, every day of delay is a loss.

"You're short of cement too?" Ron frowned.

Cement is not a precious commodity; it is a basic building material. Yet, the construction company couldn't even guarantee that.

“Young Master,” the boar said with a wry smile, only then realizing that Ron was the real employer, “we are already making every effort to purchase.”

However, Uttar Pradesh has consistently run out of cement, and currently has to source it from nearby Bihar and Middle Eastern states.

"Does Uttar Pradesh need a cement plant? Where did your company get your cement from before?" Ron asked in surprise.

“Uh, Uttar Pradesh lacks everything. There are no large cement plants, only small workshops. As for the company…” Wild Boar stammered.

“Inspur is a newly established construction company, only a few months old,” Adiya added from the side.

“A few months?” Ron was stunned.

His first thought wasn't about his own branch factory, but rather how this makeshift team had managed to secure the government's dam project.

“Chadda played a significant role in the Chief Minister election,” Adiya gave him a knowing look. Guldeep Chadda is a liquor merchant from Uttar Pradesh. He was born in Moradabad, an industrial city in Uttar Pradesh, and grew up in poverty.

His father and uncles made a living by wholesaling cheap liquor, and Chadda had been working with them since he was a teenager.

At the age of twenty, he started his own business, expanding it through thugs and bribes. Four years ago, during Yadav's election campaign, he sent money in packets in his father's name.

The two sides established a relationship, and this year Yadav was re-elected as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, which also boosted Chadda's status.

Not content with limiting his business to the liquor industry, he began to venture into real estate.

The Wave Construction Company was Chadda's attempt; by relying on nepotism, he easily won government bidding projects.

Just like the dam project that Adiya was in charge of before, Inspur had no qualifications whatsoever, but what did it matter? Nobody cared.

“If I remember correctly, there are limestone mines in Uttar Pradesh, right?” Ron asked.

“Young master, you have a good memory. There’s the largest limestone mine in Uttar Pradesh in Mirzapur, southwest of Varana, and there’s a cement workshop there.” The wild boar’s words were full of flattery.

"Where do you get your cement from?"

“That’s right, we can buy up all the inventory of that cement workshop in one go,” the wild boar said proudly.

"Does Inspur have many projects on its hands right now?"

“Of course, Mr. Chada and Mr. Yadav are good friends, and we have no shortage of business.”

Ron's eyes brightened slightly, and he tapped the table lightly with his fingers as usual.

"What about steel bars? Are you short of them too?" he asked.

"There is no shortage of steel bars."

"Ok?"

“The steel bars are easy to buy, but our goods are stuck on the road. As you know, young master, the roads in Uttar Pradesh are terrible.”

Ron felt this deeply; the road they had just driven on looked like it had been bombarded by artillery.

"What about electricity?"

The wild boar grinned, "All of India is short of electricity, but Uttar Pradesh is the most severely affected."

"It seems we still have too few power plants."

"We can only wait for Delhi to allocate funds; the minister really can't afford it," Wild Boar laughed heartlessly.

The public finances of Uttar Pradesh have been completely swallowed up by parasites, such as companies like Inspur.

Ron, the "power station" leader, frowned in deep thought.

“Uttar Pradesh also has coal mines, but it doesn’t have the money to build power plants. Yadav should solve this problem. My TV is unusable most of the time,” Adiya complained.

He looked down on the low-caste "Yadav," but couldn't openly mock him, so he could only grumble a few words.

"Second Uncle, you said there are coal mines in Uttar Pradesh?" Ron's voice rose an octave.

"It's in Sumbadela, about a two-hour drive from here."

Mineral resources in Uttar Pradesh are concentrated in the southeast. Southwest of Varana is Mirzapur, and south of Mirzapur is Sumbhadera.

Quite by chance, they are all near Varanasi, and Adiya has been there more than once.

“Look, these big chunks of coal came from Sumbadera.”

Adiya pointed to a corner of the teahouse, where a thin figure was grabbing a dark lump of coal and striking it forcefully.

He had to break the large coal into small pieces so he could stuff them under the stove where the sugar water was boiling.

"How much is a piece of coal here?" Ron asked the tea shop owner.

"Ten rupees can last a long time, they're worthless." The shopkeeper's face was plastered with a fawning smile like a wild boar.

“Ron, no one is mining the coal in the Sumbadera mines. These are all being sold privately by locals,” Adiya waved his hand dismissively.

"Why?" Ron asked, somewhat curious.

"Because as long as you mine, the coal you extract can only be used for surrounding industrial projects, such as steel mills and power plants."

This required a huge investment and was very risky. In the end, the government offered mining licenses for free, but nobody wanted them.

"Don't all companies have enough coal? Surely there are businesses in Uttar Pradesh that need it?"

“No need,” Adiya shook his head again. “Coal India can provide high-quality coal at low prices, and the supply is plentiful.”

Ron understood; ultimately, it meant that no one was under any supply or demand pressure.

Coal India Limited is a large state-owned enterprise with distribution channels throughout the states.

This is far more cost-effective than mining coal ourselves, which is not only expensive, but also means that the coal cannot be transported out and can only be consumed domestically.

Who would be so full and bored as to pick them?

Yeah, Ron was the one who ate until he was stuffed.

“Second Uncle, we should go see that Chief Minister.” Ron’s eyes lit up.

"What do you want to do?" Adiya had a bad feeling.

"Let's shut down the branch factory of Suer Electric and do other businesses."

"Huh?" Adiya and the wild boar both gaped open.

(End of this chapter)