An Apparent Shift in PMC Responsibility

Chetan Raikar, Chairman & Managing Director, STRUCTWEL

Project management companies (PMCs) have equipped enough with professionalism and now shifting gears to suit the more vibrant Indian Construction Industry. With an extraordinary skill and pragmatism, Chetan Raikar, Chairman and Managing Director, Structwel Designers & Consultants Pvt. Ltd has steered his organization to a new height. Structwel is at the forefront of structural engineering.

Its uniqueness is the presence of a structural design arm, a material testing laboratory, a Research and Development centre, and an army of trained engineers in the field of rehabilitation and restoration, with each department aiming for excellence. Integrity and professionalism are displayed by every employee of Structwel.

Chetan Raikar, the current President of American Concrete Institute, India Chapter, shares his views exclusively with Built Expressions on how PMCs are transiting to suit the requirements of customers.

BE: "What are the emerging global trends in construction management? And how are they going to influence construction scenario in India?

Globally there is an apparent shift in construction / project management towards single point responsibility. Customers have started clearly expressing about accountability in CMC/ PMC towards time & cost management. Even selection of contractors is decided in close consultation of the management consultant making them a stake holder in the decision making process. PMC / CMC are then held responsible for the act of the contractor too.

Customers in India too, have started drafting PMC contracts on these lines where a total single point responsibility and corresponding authority is vested in the management consultant. Time, cost, quality & safety are defined as key deliverables of the project/ construction management consultant. Third party quality consultant/ auditors are appointed for governance over & above.

This will bring in a total change in approach of Indian construction customers. Currently PMC is often misunderstood as an organised supervision. A consultant who would update the bar-chart periodically & conduct review meetings with preparation of the minutes. The concept of PMC would change soon to an organisation that ensures timely delivery rather than an organisation who updates the bar chart post an event.  It is going to be an organisation which would clearly advice the customer of any delays before hand with solutions to avert them. This may also mean replacing the contractor.

PMC would be an organisation which would ensure quality, the first time & would avoid costly re-works altogether. PMC are also expected nowadays to ensure strict adherence to the budget provided & ensure zero cost overruns. Safety is considered as a prime pre-requisite of construction activities & one fatal accident can result in permanent black-listing of an organisation in the list of the customer. Some international customers have started imposing penalty for even the slightest accident of the most minor nature.

Customers today are willing to pay for the quality of PMC services that are capable of taking a single point responsibility with ability to offer professional indemnity. There is a clear shift from the irrational "per engineer per month" basis payment system which invited only "manpower supply" companies as PMCs to a respectable remuneration for the services provided with accountability.

BE: How is the construction industry going to respond to Demand vs Supply cycle in the years to come?

This is a very big challenge in front of Indian companies involved in the construction activities whether Consultants or Contractors. There are far too many projects being taken up for the man-power resources available with the nation as a whole.

There is a dearth of engineers, technicians, carpenters, fitters etc. Salaries are ever increasing without any rationale & clearly without any accountability for their deliverables. It is difficult for contractors to calculate manpower/ labour costs in projects of long duration nature like 3 years & above due to such impulsive increase in the costs.

Also, it is extremely difficult to recruit engineering cadre of the most appropriate experience for the work. In most cases it is a compromised choice with inadequate or irrelevant experienced person deployed on the job.

The quality of education given in engineering colleges today needs a total change & the method of knowledge dissemination too also needs a review by academic experts. India is spending several thousand crores of foreign exchange each year in sending the engineers for further studies abroad. In most cases these engineers don’t even bother to come back to serve their motherland. The same amount, if invested in improving our educational system, would stop the brain drain & improve our foreign exchange reserve.

Providing formal training to construction workers is also an activity which neglected for far too many years now. Many contractors & professional organisations are giving their inputs but these efforts are too short of the requirement.