Infra Sector faces huge shortage of engineering and managerial talent

BANGALORE: India's real estate, construction and infrastructure industry, which is set for big investments over the next five years, faces a huge shortage of engineering, architectural and managerial talent.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), a professional body which regulates property professionals and surveyors, in a recent report, spells out a big demand-supply gap for qualified professionals. Nearly 45 million core construction professionals are required to meet the demand between 2010 and 2020, but there is a cumulative demand-supply gap of 44 million core professionals over the decade.

This demand-supply gap could seriously hamper the growth of real estate, construction and infrastructure sectors in India. "By 2020, India will need over 5 million civil engineers, architects and planners, but will be able to produce less than 1 million," the report says.

"The projected shortage of various built-environment professionals becomes cause for concern as it threatens the sustainability of high growth sectors of real estate, construction and infrastructure," said Sachin Sandhir, MD, RICS South Asia.

With India's population estimated to increase to 1.38 billion, with 36% of this comprising the urban population, 95 billion s ft of real estate space across residential, commercial, industrial and civil amenities will be required by 2020. "To deliver potential real estate space and planned infrastructure, India would need nearly 4 millioncivil engineers, 3,96,000 architects and 1,19,000 planners on an average over the next decade. However, the corresponding average supply would only be 6,42,000 civil engineers, 65,000 architects and 18,000 planners," the report said.

While real estate and infrastructure projects have seen a big pump-in, lower salaries compared to other sectors results in a lack of interest among students, thus creatingshortage. Further, fewer colleges and shortage of trained faculty coupled with formalised incentive structures for construction professionals have added to the industry's woes..

Of the nearly 50 million working in the sector now, only 2 million are professionally qualified, with the rest being primarily unskilled workers.

"Over the last 3 years, while working on urban renewal issues, a challenge that has come to light is the lack of capacity at every level," said Isher Judge Ahluwalia, Chairperson, High Powered Committee on Urban Infrastructure, Ministry of Urban Development.