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Mechanised construction is the key to progress:

If you've noticed a gang of labourers reminiscent of the past century, standing in line and passing head-loads of concrete mixture up a stairway at a construction site, no proof is required to underline the rudimentary systems that continue to prevail in a nation's infrastructure sector. That picture is mostly passe at least in most parts of the bigger metros in India, but the large majority of construction still happens with manual efforts, that neither guarantees economy of construction, nor of its quality. "For a country focused on development, it is imperative to mechanise its infrastructure creation," it is tough to digest India's continued reliance on manual labour and hand-mixing of concrete even for big construction projects. Most countries of the world have banned head-load supplies of concrete at construction sites and insist on pumped concrete. In fact, if the concrete is pumpable, that alone ensures the quality of the concrete for the specified strength required in the given project. Curiously, the continued use of manual labour for concreting in India has little to do either with availability of labour or a cost-benefit in using manual labour. While the conventional method of manual concrete mixing at construction sites can produce an average volume of 20 cu m of concrete a day, even the smallest mixing plant of construction equipment makers can produce 18 cu m of concrete per hour. "One reason why India is beginning to shed its dependence on manual concrete mixing is the penalties now associated with infrastructure projects. Delays cost the builder now, in contrast to even a few years ago when the builder would pass on cost escalation to the buyer in case of a delay in the project. India is in fast-forward mode and time is of essence. Players like BPOs often want to start operations straight away and have no time to wait. All that is tipping the scales in favour of use of ready-mix concrete, and mechanised construction equipment at sites," Despite modernisation, India fares poorly in overall use of mechanised systems. In use of ready-mix concrete for instance, in the West, almost 65-70% of all concrete used in construction is of the readymix variety and the remaining usage is for peripheral applications like cement plastering. India pales in comparison, with its use of ready-mix concrete still in single digit. The low rate of mechanised construction in the country is also reflected in the market size of construction equipment. Presently, the size of the organised and semiorganised equipment manufacturing sector in the country is only about Rs 1,800 crore, Of all the comparisons between China and India, the construction sector is perhaps the one assessed most. While China has embarked on a furious pace of construction building express highways and highrises galore, India seems to lag. India holds an edge over China in terms of work ethics and work environment, and that the use of modernisation of construction in our metros would need some innovation to meet existing regulations. Large truck mixers, for instance, are not permitted entry into cities during day time, leading to extended down time and delays for those putting up infrastructure in cities. Schwing Stetter recently introduced a small truck mixer that can manoeuvre through city traffic, and also meets the RTO's guidelines for vehicle size that is allowed to ply within urban areas during the day. A slowdown in the realty sector is pinching construction equipment manufacturers too, but India's large residue of non-mechanised construction processes point to continued growth for construction

equipment players. "The construction equipment sector is projected to grow as much as 25% year-onyear for a decade, and prospects look particularly bright for the concreting equipment sector. Construction equipment has become available at lower costs, thus making them affordable for a wider base of customers,".The C.I.I. has projected India's construction equipment industry to grow to a size of $6.5 billion by 2014, as strong demand drives the country's infrastructure segment.

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