http://m.indianexpress.com/news/Number-of-migrant-labourers-down--construction-sector-hit/923145/
Number of migrant labourers down, construction sector hit - Indian Express Mobile
The migration from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasth an to the city seems to be on decline as the construction industry is reeling under a severe shortage of manpower that traditionally comes from these states. Owing to this, the rates of skilled and unskilled labour has gone up by Rs 50-100 per day compared to the daily wages charged nearly a year back.
The officials of Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDIA) said that the rates of both skilled and unskilled manpower have increased with the carpenters and masons now charging between Rs 450-600 while the labourers charging Rs 250-300 a day. The businessmen associated with real estate industry said the shortage of manpower is around 20-25 per cent against the per day requirement of nearly 30,000 people in the city.
“The shortage is due to the decline in the number of workers from UP, Bihar and Gujrat. This is because now these states are also witnessing development,” said JP Shroff, member of management committee of CREDAI. Some independent real-estate companies also pointed out the decline in migration as a reason for the shortage of manpower.
Ranjit More, Managing Director of Universal Group, said the shortage in manpower is being met by raising the skilled manpower through in-house training. “We are facing manpower shortage at a number of projects that are going on in different parts of the state. We are being helped by people from other business streams in the company to train the manpower to operate machines which are now being used in place of manual labour,” said More.
While the developers are trying to meet the shortage by using machines, as a long term initiative training programmes are being offered by industry body like CREDAI and some institutes to help meet the gap. “We have raised a trained manpower of 1,600 people and the training in different skills is being offered at the sites. The training is currently going on at 11-12 sites,” said Shroff.
President of Maharashtra-Pune Metro chapter of Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDIA), Satish Magar, said, “Mechanisation is increasingly becoming common to deal with the labour shortage. The machinery like concrete mixers and lifts are being used by the developers to reduce the dependence on labour.”
Real estate developers however say despite initiatives like mechanisation and on-site training the projects are getting delayed. Director of B U Bhandari Landmarks, a real estate company, Anuj Bhandari, said, “The estimated time for the completion of projects is getting delayed. The work that is being done has now become more expensive due to the labour shortage.”
Due to the manpower shortage, the training institutes like the Ideal Construction Practices are offering training programmes on raising the manpower. Founder of Ideal Construction Practices, R B Chaphalkar, said, “From March we are starting 21-lecture course on the supervision of building constructions. The course will train people in undertaking the supervision of the construction works. We have created all the facilities at our training centre at Dhayani in the city to train the people in the supervisory work.”
Arun Gupta
