Precast construction practices In India

Impact of urbanization and demand for mass housing

Urbanization is a global phenomenon and India too has its special issues associated with population growth. It illustrates that many cities will swell with a higher population and also lead to the creation of more rural villages, which is not good for integral development. The estimated shortage of housing in India is about 24.71 million dwelling units and which may be doubled in the next decade if it is not addressed now properly. Housing construction in India is still popular with conventional archaic practices, which is time-consuming with less productivity and causing more housing shortage.

Skilled Manpower Shortage In Industry

A recent survey was conducted by the Indian Concrete Institute of India after the post-conference session on “Precast Building in India – practice, possibilities and prospect “in the year 2011. It has been revealed that there exist wide gaps in design, architecture and execution phases. While 92 % expert agree that the precast concrete technology I the solution for mass housing, competency levels both at design and execution stages are estimated at 38% and 35% respectively which are inadequate to drive the technology growth in the country.

Status of Precast Concrete Technology in India

Precast concrete technology is very popular in housing, factories and in infrastructure projects. In the early 70s, the precast concrete technology was first initiated through premier national laboratories of India to support government programs. Freyssints investing in 1928 had change concrete technology into popular prestressed concrete technology. Prior to this invention concrete was not such a popular construction material due to its low tensile strength. Precast hollow-core slabs, long span T-beams, planks, roof shells, etc . , have popularised precast building construction. L&T – construction under the guidance and pioneering initiatives of Dr. A Ramakrishna had carried out significant precast concrete technology developmental work in the building, industrial factories, bridges, stadium structures, etc. for several years. ICI Handbook details many such building innovation projects builts in India in the last several years.

Why go for building construction with precast?

There are many benefits over conventional construction. Table 2 illustrates the comparison of precast construction vs conventional building construction. The elegant benefits are high speed, good quality and neat construction with fewer wastages. Today the precast concrete industry is highly customer focussed. Many innovative technologies have been adopted and practice in the industry. Thermal, acoustic, seismic resistant technologies and buildings are already available and practiced in many countries.

Way Forward

The international construction practices should be drawn suitably and the national standards can be suitably improvised. Many showcase structures built should be popularised.

Practice for International Expertise TO Support the Precast Concrete Industry in India

• Preliminary advisory Proposals for Precast Design and Construction Service
• Building and housing projects Lumpsum fee based on total building contract value
• precast components factory design – Lump sum fee, depending on the size of the factory and the types of components
• Precast components factory set up and molds supply – Lum’s sum fee, depending on the size of factory and number and type of molds
• Supply od machinery and components.