Pune: Work at Construction sites fail to resume due to lack of technical staff and pre – monsoon construction material

Pune, May 7, 2020: In spite of government’s decision to allow commencement of work at under construction sites, nothing seems to be moving and developers are facing multiple problems to restart the work. CREDAI Pune Metro undertook a survey among the real estate developers to identify the key reasons for not being able to restart the construction work.  Over 216 real estate developers having ongoing projects in PMC, PCMC and PMRDA region participated in the survey and shared the difficulties faced by them.

“Findings of the survey indicated that majority of the developers are facing problems like unavailability of construction material, especially the material related to pre-mosoon construction work, difficulties in construction material reaching the sites, problems faced by technical staff and site engineers in going to the construction sites and the state of confusion in the minds of the labour force at the construction sites, who are now getting into the mindset of going back to their home towns since they have no work at the sites and uncertainty looms over commencement of work”, informed Suhas Merchant, President, CREDAI Pune Metro.

“To overcome most of these problems a well coordinated and collective effort by all the concerned Governmental departments is necessary. So that, while giving permissions to start the work at the construction sites all the related aspects are considered and the operations restart in a seamless manner” he added.

Merchant pointed out that “It is really important to speed up the process of solving these problems because we hardly have any time in hand to complete the pre monsoon work. Site work for basement, retaining wall, underground work, water proofing cannot start without consultants and the technical staff including the special work supervisors being preset at sites. Secondly, all those constructions workers who wanted to leave have left in the first lot and the remaining ones are hoping to get the work. In case we are unable to start the work immediately these remaining workers will also flee and it will bring the work to standstill resulting in delay and huge financial losses in these difficult times, which will only worsen the situation”.

Findings of survey are as follows
216 Developers working in PMC / PCMC / PMRDA filled this survey
Together, they have ONLY 45,700 Labours at Site (in-situ)
Based on survey, over 46% labour will leave for hometown as they have NO work.
Less than 20% staff was able to reach site due to confusion / unavailability of e-pass / harassment by local police.
About 90% developers need material on site to begin work (pre-monsoon preparations)
Less than 10% developers have been able to receive any material on site in the last few days.
Almost 50% developers (105 out of 216) have less than 100 labour available at site.
Less than 3% developers have more than 1000 labours at all their on-going sites

Other feedback pointers from the survey are as follows
Several developers are confused on clarity on orders issued by local administration and police. Due to lack of petrol, many site staff, Consultants staff (for checking) & Contractor staff cannot come to work. Inter-District travel is currently not being allowed. Many senior engineers had travelled to hometown just before lockdown. they need to get back to Pune.

One-time permission to move specific labours required for pre-monsoon works. Gram Panchyat & Police is asking for health check-ups on labours and is scaring them / enticing them to leave Pune / Maharashtra. RMC plants have shut and hence concreting is not possible at several places. Safety / Hygiene material is not coming to site and hence facing difficulty in implementing guidelines. Banks have stopped disbursements. Cashflow is a HUGE challenge.