CONSTRUCTING A BETTER INDIA

According to a study by ASSOCHAM, the burgeoning Indian constuction industry, currently worth $70 billion, will rise to US $120 billion by 2010. this growth is believed to be people-intensive. The Indian construction sector currently employs about 30 million and will provide direct and indirect job prospects to 90 million people, requiring both skilled and unskilled manpower.
At present, the manpower shortage in the Indian construction industry is anywhere above 50 per cent, “ says Krishna Thota, Deputy GM – HR, Soma Enterprise Ltd. SK Dutt, Head {T&B}HED, Larsen & Toubro Ltd says, “The current manpower shortage in this sector is growing by the day but is still within manageable proportions. However, the pressure is beginning to tell and there is the likelihood of a major mismatch between demand and supply, in the future, unless proactive steps are taken to address the issue.” Construction is a work-force intrinsic industry and the work-force is a mixture of both, skilled as well as un-skilled labour. And due to the recent development in the sector, a lot of mechanisation has taken place due to which even the un-skilled needs to be trained to work with the machines. ‘Whatever the initiatives, the government and the industry are taking up, its only affecting the tip of the iceberg and we are not seeing much happening in allocation of funds and grants at the levels required,” says Thota. Thota further adds that there is dearth in the market for middle and senior level managers and the supply side needs to improve i.e. new colleges must come up and the industry must invest in training and development of the prospective employees. He further adds, “Unless there is collaboration between the industry and the government, this issue can’t be resolved.” This industry is going the way many other industries went; boom, mismatch and then correctional steps. At present, we are in stage 2 i.e. mismatch in demand and supply because of the boom and the problem must be sorted out soon to cash on the heights.