“We are migrating from the SME platform to the main board on the BSE,” explains Pandurang B Dandawate, promoter and founder chairman of Dhruv Consultancy Services Ltd. “Dhruv in Sanskrit means stable polestar which resides 20 degrees latitude in the north direction,” says Dandawate who christened his company in 2003. Dandawate is a civil engineer who joined the Maharashtra Public Service Commission and was selected as a Class I officer in PWD, Government of Maharashtra as a deputy engineer at the young age of 23. He served in the government for 23 years. “In my tenure I was instrumental in the construction and commissioning of 16 flyovers on the Eastern Express Highway including Sino flyover and a trendsetting elevated structure – The JJ Flyover”, says Dandawate who took voluntary retirement from PWD and start Dhruv Consultancy Services as a Pvt Ltd. beginning with 200 sq ft. of rented office space at Vashi with four employees and with no experience of entrepreneurship. “My mentor was the then CMD of IRB, the late D.P. Mhaiskar, who also left the service as junior engineer in BMC and built the empire of IRB and MEP.” Hurdle to get eligibility criteria “I faced many challenges during this period of transition and the major challenge was to build a team of capable and vibrant individuals to achieve the target of excellence” says Dandawate. With just four projects in the first year of incorporation which yielded a revenue of Rs25 lakh, he started slow. However, the fighting spirit instilled due to challenges faced earlier in life kept going and becoming strong day by day. One of the biggest hurdles to overcome was the eligibility criteria set out by government agencies for appointing consultants. “We dealt with it in a surgical fashion, building the credentials of the firm step by step by bagging private and sub-consultancy works. While doing this we made a name for the firm and our team. I kept it clear and brought to the mind of the team that we have to maintain a highly professional attitude in dealing and completing assignments of varied complexities,” he says. Dhruv bagged the first large work of design and project management consultancy work for the project of the Bhiwandi-Kalyan Shil Road amounting of Rs210 crore in 2006. The work included converting an existing two-lane road into a four-lane one on State Highway No 4, including one creek bridge of 269.8 metres long, one road overbridge (ROB) 475.14 metres long, inclusive of design. “The alignment of the existing road was two lanes which passed through a densely populated area where land acquisition was a very difficult task and this was completed overcoming unusual difficulties; a toll plaza was constructed at two locations. The road proved a major link between the Bhiwandi junction and Shilphata. The client was PLUS Expressways Berhad (KL) Malaysia. The work was completed in 2009 on BOT basis,” adds Dandawate. This was the first milestone of the company as it got international exposure. The completion of a large project which posed many challenges and the sizeable fee helped the company a lot in building its credentials, net-worth and experience.