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Labour ‘Pains’ For Realty Sector
Posted by Pradeep Sadanapalli | June 24, 2007 | 244 views
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Loading ...According to experts there is 30 per cent shortfall of labour force, writes M. Sai Gopal.
Shortage of construction material and their prices keeping a steady upward march, land rates having shot up beyond reach in last two years and now a shortage of men and women who could help in putting together the dreams homes. The woes of builders community doesn’t seem to end.
With construction works taken up in such large scale in the city and suburbs, the middle level contractors and builders are increasingly finding it a tough task to recruit the workforce needed at every level to build these modern edifices.
This shortage of ‘skilled’ labour is leading to niggling delays in completion of major projects both in the government and private sector. A case in point is the inordinate delay in grounding the ‘dream’ project of Andhra Pradesh Housing Board to provide housing for the urban poor.
While it is extremely tough to quantify the exact shortage of skilled labour, experts in the know give rough estimates of 30 per cent perennial shortfall of labour force. The migration of existing labour to native villages during the coming months of monsoons is expected to further aggravate the situation.
“This shortage has become a universal phenomenon. Customers need quality construction and for that, contractors and builders need quality workforce. To get quality one has to acquire skills and because of the ‘unorganised’ nature of this sector, there are very few trained workers,” explains Assistant Director (Programmes), National Academy of Construction, M.S.N. Murthy.
“We get requests for skilled labour from Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal for workforce. However, the workers constantly refuse because of more options for them in the State itself.
Sometimes, we also bring workers from other States ,” points out a contractor operating in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, B. Rajendra Prasad.
Not surprisingly, there has been a tremendous change in the wages.
For an unskilled worker, the per-day wage, which was about Rs. 50 five years back, has increased now to Rs. 100 to Rs. 150. For skilled workers like packers, loaders, masons, bricklayers, the daily wages have increased to Rs. 200 to Rs. 500 per day.
“Already there is a large workforce from other States like Bihar and Orissa working here. Moreover, farmers of Anantapur and even coastal district who double up as skilled labour at construction sites here would move away to their villages during monsoons ,” says Chairman for AP Chapter of Builders Association of India, S. N. Reddy.
The demand for large number of workforce is also fuelling behavioural changes among skilled labour.
SOURCES:
The Hindu
Topics: The Facts, Real Estate |
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