Issues bothering today's construction Industry

Issues bothering today’s construction industry are myriad. From approvals and sanctions to lack of alternative materials to global competition to aging workforce emphasising the skills gap to big foot in a small shoe to unethical demands to corrupt officials to lack of timely payments to psychological pressure and the list goes on.

Ajit Sabnis

Editor-in-Chief

Architects, Engineers and professionals need to evolve new paradigms, innovative technologies and skilled project handling strategies to overcome these issues and challenges. Some of the issues that need to be addressed on priority by the industry at Global level are-Adoption of new technologies such as 3D rendering and simulation, model-driven design including building information modeling (BIM), Climatic changes, Aging structures, shrinking workforce, mechanization, Declining productivity and Common information platform instead of islands of information, Government policies, up gradation of human life quality by providing basic necessities and many more.

The Indian Construction Industry encompassing quite a large bandwidth of activities including-roads, dams, airports, and other public utility constructions, industrial, commercial and residential constructions also includes manufacturing segments. Given India's soaring economic growth, it is predicted that the demand for construction will rise, to meet the growing demand for infrastructure like roads, railways and bridges, and also the need for housing.

With about 3.1 crore semi-skilled and skilled labour, it is even today, the next big employer to agriculture sector in India. Considering the top ten industries contributing to the Indian GDP and as per the recent projections, Real Estate and Infrastructure sectors together contribute to about 23% as against the Agricultural sector’s contribution of 15.7%. Though agricultural share has declined over the years, it still influences the overall socio-economic fabric of India. With considerable improvements in irrigation facilities, technological aids, modern agricultural practices, credits and subsidies, high crop yield has been assured and this Green Revolution in India has brought significant wealth to the farmers of many Indian states.

This big colourful canvas of construction industry can become a reality only if the factors bothering the construction industry are addressed meticulously without any selfish interest by the Government machineries in the administrative hierarchy. Firstly, the challenges in the form of dire need for residential housing by the middle, lower middle and lower classes of the society propelled by the affordability factor. Thus, there is a sheer necessity for the construction industry to act towards providing shelter to the unprivileged. The second issue is labour shortage. The growing construction activity adopting mechanisation in a fast track time frame has brought with it the demand for skilled labour resulting in high wages. We also find a shift from hard labour construction work mindset to more sophisticated industrial job profile mindset. While urbanisation factor leading to space, services, sanitation and water supply form the third constraint, rising cost of construction materials, non availability of quality materials, depleting natural resources and lack of alternative materials impels the fourth constraint.

The other important factor that cannot be ignored is the training aspect of our young engineers who are going to shoulder the future responsibility in the advent of new generation construction materials, sustainable development and emerging technologies together with the vocational training of all connected trades. India has to embark on a large scale expansion program at university level where in the field exposure becomes a part of evaluation. Such training should also consider including disaster management into its fold.

As recently suggested by Basu, President of BAI, there is a need to set up a separate ministry for construction industry to monitor and effectively address variety of issues giving the necessary push and lift to achieve the projected digits of development.

Wishing you all the very best,

Ajit Sabnis