The construction industry is facing acute labour shortage due to social schemes like JNNURM and NREGA, leading to delay in infrastructure projects and hampering the growth of the sector, Assocham said on Wednesday.

“Due to government social schemes like JNNURM and NREGA, a large number of construction projects are lagging behind their completion schedule mainly because of acute labour shortage,” it said.

The growth of the sector has gradually declined from about 30 per cent in 2007 to about 12 per cent currently, it said.

“Market size of India’s construction industry might not even reach Rs 30,000-crore mark by 2015 from the current level of about Rs 21,000 crore as the labour-intensive sector has been constantly grappling with the shortage of workforce,” it said.

Besides labour shortage, slowdown in capital investments, continuing economic downturn and lacklustre performance of realty sector are the other problems being faced by the construction sector, it added.

“Many industry players have blamed government social schemes for locally generating jobs leading to continuous depletion of migratory workforce from the construction sector,” Assocham said.

Paucity of man power in the sector has shot up the cost of construction labour by over 25 per cent, it said.

Further, Assocham has called for introduction of technology like pre-fabricated buildings, brick less technology to aid faster construction and counter the labour crunch faced by the industry.

“Domestic construction companies need to invest heavily in technology to reduce construction costs, thereby providing additional benefits to the customers and spurt demand,” it said.

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