India
is rapidly urbanizing to accommodate the rising population in its cities. As
per RICS' estimates, India's
urban population is likely to be at 600 million by the end of year 2030. The emergence
of new cities and towns every year impels us to develop urban and rural
infrastructure including housing at a rapid pace. While the government has
announced its target to provide housing for all by the year 2022, much has to
be done on ground to implement this dream. But there are challenges -
regulatory bottlenecks, lack of funding and skills shortage will continue to
delay the process. The industry is particularly aware of the problem of skills
shortage.
To execute the mammoth task of construction and development
there is a constant need for qualified and skilled professionals. Reducing
massive demand-supply gap of skilled professionals is fundamental for the
industry to be able to deliver projects of highest quality, on time and on
cost. And this shortage provides tremendous employment opportunities for
country's youth.
Infrastructure,
construction and real estate sectors have been driving the employment in the
last one decade. According to industry estimates, construction has provided
eight million new jobs between 1999-2000 and 2004-05. By the end of year
2011-2012, the employment in construction sector alone rose three times of that
number. It is noticeable that during the boom period of construction and real
estate sector (period between 2006 and 2012), a significant share was added to
the overall pie. The current requirement of skilled professionals demands for
more. According to estimates, every year the industry needs around 5
million skilled professionals.
Variety of roles available
The three sectors,
real estate, construction and infrastructure offer more than 20 different kinds
of employment opportunities for a fresher across streams such as investment
banking, mortgage, corporate real estate, consultancy, advisory, quantity
surveying, construction project management and facilities management etc. These
sectors will have millions of jobs that will be created every year. But
students acquiring relevant skills will only be able to grow in their
professional careers.
Opportunities also demands
for specialized skills, as the variety of jobs demand for skills beyond the
normal management job. Moreover, a number of technological advancements
achieved over the last one decade as an outcome of the continued growth within
sectors have made the arena even more challenging! Thus, a student aspiring to
join a particular segment should be well versed with the nuances of the
profession or should have the subject knowledge and relevant skill set. A
limited number of institutions have started offering courses on these
specialized streams. Some specialized Schools have also been set up that aim to
fulfill the industry need for skilled professionals.
To meet the target,
it is thus imperative that more and more institutions are set up that offer
specialized courses on various streams across real estate and construction
sectors. This can only be achieved by creating synergy with the requirements of
the industry and setting up schools of learning for the sector to fulfill requirement
of a skilled workforce. Collectively, educational institutions, large
corporates and the government can prepare a roadmap for bringing such a
framework in the country.
- Prof Anil Sawhney, Associate Dean and Director,
School of Construction, RICS School of Built Environment, Amity University