EMI India 2020 in Review

COVID shutdown in India came suddenly in March, thankfully no one from the team was trapped outside of India or Delhi, but there were a few close calls. Three expatriated staff and our expatriated intern ended up leaving earlier than planned for the end of their assignment or previously scheduled home assignments. All of our Indian staff choose to stay in Delhi and work from home rather than return to their home places. To date, there have been no confirmed cases of COVID on our team. There have been a few suspected cases though that went untested. We are very gratefully for overall good health and protection for our team.

Nearly all of our pre-COVID projects continued, and we have managed to start new projects for several returning and two new clients. We were also able to complete our second design-build interior construction project for a training centre in Delhi NCR with a two-month break in the middle due to the COVID shutdown.

After working from our homes since March, all our staff that are in Delhi are back in the office. Our expatriated staff are beginning to make their way to India, with two arrivals in September and October, and the remainder expected at the start of next year.

We have been blessed to stay quite busy with project work. All of our major projects continued with only slight pauses and we have also been able to start several new design project in the Delhi metro area. This has been important as cross-country travel remains very difficult. We are also attempting a few projects with remote volunteers, which is another very important “skill” for the coming months and years before international travel returns to some normalcy. Be on the lookout for more remote volunteer opportunities that we will post on the projects section of the website.