BANGALORE: In the last one year, the construction industry has been facing a labour shortage, resulting in cost escalation up to 40 per cent.Not only most of the projects have been delayed because of the shortage, but the crisis is forcing realtors into adopting automated construction processes, the cost of which could inevitably be passed on to the buyers.While analysts believe that the industry in the city has been forced to pay about 30 percent more on labour charges, many realtors claim that they are mainly suffering because of lack of ‘skilled’ labourers.“Bangalore has been getting labourers from Tamil Nadu, Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa.Now with the government and the mindset of people in these places changing, more and more infrastructure projects are coming up in these states itself, generating jobs for the labourers.So the labourers who were working here, are now heading back to their states,” said Shrinivas Rao, CEO-Asia Pacific, Vestian Global.Further, over 60 per cent projects that started in the last one year have been delayed or put on hold for months because of the escalating costs.“All the skilled man power that had been coming into Bangalore from Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa have returned to their native towns.Further, most of our work is sequential, so if one part of the work is delayed because of lack of labourers, then all the following works will be delayed.This shortage is having a cascading effect on the construction industry in the city,” said Sushil Mantri, former CREDAI president.Many realtors in the city, who had foreseen this crisis believe that a pragmatic approach in the present crisis will help matters.“We build a loyalty base of labourers.It is important to bring about that human element. They should be treated like partners in the company and transparency and uprightness should be maintained.Further, they should be given practical targets.Their safety should be ensured and they should be involved in the process of building a timeline and deadlines,” said H R Girish, CEO, Vakil Housing Development Corporation.However, while some developers believe that heading towards automation is the apt solution to solve the present crisis in the construction industry, others beg to differ. “Automation is not going to solve the problem completely. This has been a predominant problem in the last few years. As the labour cost has shot up by almost 20-30 percent, this will not solve the entire problem. Although there’s labour shortage, Karnataka does have labourers, but cannot handle the entire load of the industry. There is a need to introduce vocational training institutes to train labourers in skilled jobs,” explained Sanjay Raj, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director, Golden Gate Properties Pvt Ltd.Though the industry is facing a dire shortage of skilled labour, if automation is adopted, then although time consumed in construction would reduce, it would also increase the cost for the end buyers.
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