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— Photo: K. Ramesh Babu

In demand: There is a great demand for skilled and unskilled labour in the construction industry.

But the industry is not bereft of its share of woes. While focus has remained on land costs or spiralling prices of material such as cement and steel, but another big problem that confront the builders’ community is the acute shortage of skilled and trained manpower.

The shortage is felt at every level from engineer to draughtsman to mason. Such is the state of affairs that builders admit they are forced to source even the labour from other States. Once the construction workers from the State, in search of greener pastures had migrated to other places and the sudden and unexpected need had the builders looking outside for them.

The kind of construction activity taking place is unprecedented and from a small clutch of builders, the community in the city had swollen unimaginably. Developers and builders from the other States and from other countries too are here. As a leading developer points out, most of them have scaled up their projects by almost five times and this scaled up volumes has ended up in rummaging for an appropriate workforce to have the same executed.

International practices have come in the recent times and construction has started going more and more vertical, something that is new for the local workforce. “It is something new for all level of workforce from top down the ladder to the worker taking the head load,” points out a builder.

Adds G.Yoganand, Managing Director, Manjeera Constructions, “This is a piquant situation which we never faced here. The need is so high that we are forced to get workers from other States such as Orissa and West Bengal”.

A sort of reverse brain-drain was happening. Engineers in particular who had shifted to software have started to come back to the field. “Civil engineers who went to the US and UK have realised the potential that is on offer and a thinking is going on about returning home,” says Mr.Yoganand.

Pochender, CEO, Lanco Hills agrees on this.

The requirement is at all levels, particularly the groups that have gone corporate and have big projects to take care of. “Properly trained persons in vertical construction are hard to come by,” he says. Even at a lower level, the skilled workers earlier had migrated to the Middle East and efforts are to wean them back.

“The construction industry is in the process of assembling adequate skilled workforce to meet its deadlines. There is a date when a project is to be completed and that schedule is non-negotiable, particularly for the corporate groups,” points out Mr. Pochender.

Not only the engineers and masons and workers, the dearth is felt in every other aspect of construction. There are not adequate numbers of carpenters, plumbers, electricians or persons trained in laying the stones.

The Northern belt is where the efforts of the industry are to source the need. Also, the training part for the workforce.

Traditionally, the profession has been family oriented one passed on from one generation to another. And the practices masons and others acquired happened to be more conventional ones. “The practices have changed and more professional atmosphere has been ushered in. This calls for some orientation to them on the new and emerging practices that go into create world class structures,” says Mr.Pochender.

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