by Paul Wallett, Regional Director for Trimble Middle-East and India Region
According to estimates from civil society groups, 378 million people in metropolitan India - at least 1% of the total population - are homeless and experts warn that more people will enter homelessness as housing costs increase. The Home Purchase Affordability Index suggests that Mumbai saw an 8% drop in affordability in 2022, Delhi NCR took a greater hit at 10% year-on-year and in Bangalore, affordability has fallen by over 9% in 2022. This trend is expected to continue in 2023 and beyond.
Effective planning and housing provision is no easy feat in a highly diverse country that has perhaps already surpassed China as the world’s most populous nation. Despite the introduction of a spate of housing schemes and policy initiatives geared towards the mission of housing for all, securing affordable housing for all in the country remains a pressing and visible matter.
Given the circumstances, the Central Government’s flagship initiative - Prime Minister Awas Yojana (PMAY) was seen as manna from heaven. Of the 401 lakh houses sanctioned during the mission period, which has been extended till Dec 2024, about 277 lakh houses have been constructed and delivered to beneficiaries. To expedite the construction of houses sanctioned under this and some other state-run schemes, The Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTC) under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has been promoting innovative construction technologies like modular tunnel form, rapid panels, light gauge steel framed structures (LGSFS), and Waffle-Crete building systems. This step signifies a paradigm change and is a huge upgrade from the cast-in-situ framed structures currently popular in India.
However, these technologies cover only a tiny sliver of all that is available and feasible in the construction landscape. Other cutting-edge solutions and processes like Building Information Modeling (BIM), additive manufacturing; industrial internet of things; cloud based construction, big data analytics, autonomous robots as well as virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, if deployed, have the potential to catalyze the biggest disruption in the construction industry. Deeper integration of technology solutions in construction can have tremendous impact on helping to reduce the cost and facilitate further development. This is crucial because while PMAY is plugging an important gap in India on the affordable housing front, a developing economy like India must be cognizant of other solutions for reforming the housing market and address the deep-rooted issues associated with the housing market in the country.
The construction industry needs to undertake large-scale rapid digitalization to answer the challenges of cost overruns, waste generation, project delays and low profitability. The shortfall in new affordable homes will not bode well for those in desperate need of housing. Putting things in order may not be easy but it is not impossible either. Many large construction companies have adopted technology solutions and have proved the efficacy of deploying the right solutions to bring down project costs. Digitalization offers a wealth of untapped cost-saving opportunities that can be used to solve our country’s persistent housing shortage, which currently numbers 10 million units in urban India alone. Modern construction technologies like Tekla Structures offer advanced constructible BIM models, tools for cloud-based collaboration and project management that prompt waste reduction, less rework, increased machine productivity and fuel savings, thus leading to lower building costs, ultimately allowing for affordable homebuilding.
