Precast Technology: Here to Stay
Smart Cities India is all set to become the most-popular country in the world by 2030, making it the home to the biggest and the most under-penetrated market for global manufacturers and service providers. The growing population shifting to top tier cities of the country is giving rise to new megacities and this is estimated to generate 80% of economic growth, with potential to apply modern technologies and infrastructure, promoting better use of scarce resources. A few smart cities are already coming up across the country, including Kochi Smart City, Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) in Ahmedabad, Naya Raipur in Chhattisgarh, Wave Infratech's 4,500-acre smart city near New Delhi.
India has also been inviting foreign partnership in developing the smart cities and has signed deals to build eight cities. India's Smart City plan is a part of larger agenda of creating Industrial Corridors among India's big metropolitan cities. These include the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, the Chennai-Bangalore Industrial Corridor and the Bangalore-Mumbai Economic Corridor. It is hoped that many industrial and commercial centres will be recreated as "Smart Cities" along these corridors. The Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), which is spread across six states, seeks to create seven new smart cities as the nodes of the corridor in its first phase. JICA has also taken up master planning for three "Smart Cities" - Ponneri in Tamil Nadu, Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and Tumkur in Karnataka - in the Chennai-Bangalore Industrial Corridor.
What are the factors, you think, led the precast building technology gaining foothold in the Indian market especially in residential and infra construction?
As per the present scenario, there are various factors which are making the precast technology gaining foothold in India especially the residential sector. The constant problems of skilled / semi skilled labourers is the major factor which is making the developers to go for precast technology in India. Earlier the laborers used to move out to different cities for their living but now with the projects (Infra, residential,etc) coming up in their own cities they get themselves restricted to their own cities for their living. Another reason for the low population of laborers is their change in profession where they can earn better and have decent livelihood. Apart from the labor problems, the Government directives favoring the buyers are forcing the developers & contractors to adopt precast technology.
How do you see the scope of Precast in Low cost housing projects? What support are you seeking from the government for the same?
Low cost Housing or Affordable Housing is a hot subject in India now. Precast gives a good ROI in low cost housing since the construction is match box type and there are not too much changes in the element design. The contractor can get precast customized moulds to suit their project requirement and can hand over the project ahead of time if the planning and scheduling is done in the right manner. The Government initiative should be that they should form a cell which would look into the aspect for the low cost housing project coming up in India and set up norms and building regulations for the contractors to abide by the same and not deviate.
Vollert India Pvt. Ltd. since its inception in June 2011 has contributed significantly in the precast technology by setting up precast factories for reputed developers and contractors in India. The most modernized precast set up we have done is for Sobha Ltd. who are the most admired developer in India now. The precast factory set up for Sobha Ltd. in Bangalore is for their Dream Acres project constituting of 6900 apartments which is a showcase project for every one.
Regarding the investment of Vollert in India we are building our own factory at Sikandrabad in U.P. where we plan to make the Stationary Systems to bring the cost of investment down for the developers and contractors in India.
What are the industries segment Vollert majorly catering to? Please tell us about your complete range of products and services.
We are mainly catering to the residential sector presently where we would like to have our foothold and confidence building for the developers and contractors. We plan to go a step further later on by entering into the Infra sector as this sector also needs to be addressed for timely completion of project and adding value to the same.
How do you rate the sustainability of precast construction?
Precast has been sustainable in other parts of the world and it would be the same in India as well. The only parameter for sustainability of precast which one has to look into is the proper designing of the structures, proper joint design, etc.
Don't you think, if there is standardization in dimension of structures then it can increase the demand of prefab products manifold?
Standardization is of course necessary in every field but in precast the main important thing is how the precast elements have to be designed so that there is repetitions of the same and this gives an impact on the production capacity and finally the ultimate goal of completing the project in time is achieved. Precast does not mean that if the project calls for different element design it is not suitable but them with too much changes in the design of the structures ultimately hampers the production resulting in delay in the execution of the project.
What about the repair and maintenance on precast buildings or structures?
In the conventional beam and column structure, repair and maintenance is absolutely necessary after a fixed time but in case of precast the repair and maintenance is least or negligible since the element is factory produced and all the structures are RCC Load bearing structures. In Europe or rest of the world it has been seen that wherever there are precast buildings and structures, there no repairs have been carried out at all except the painting of the exterior walls which is required after a certain period of time because of the various external conditions where no one has any control on the same.
NBM&CW June 2016
