Damit die 100 Smart Cities-Initiative der indischen Regierung gelingen kann, muss in die Ausbildung und Qualifizierung des Personals, unter anderem im Immobiliensektor, investiert werden. Lesen Sie dazu einen Artikel im indischen Magazin "EPC World".
Skilled Manpower would be the key to 100 Smart Cities
Need to Invest in Training and Qualifying Employees to the Property
Industry
Everyone is aware that India's cities are
expanding at a tremendous pace and it was in this context that the Indian
Government introduced the "100 Smart Cities" initiative in order to modernize
cities and make them internationally competitive.
The aim of the
initiative is to cater for the increasingly high rate of rural migration to the
cities, the desire for better living standards among the growing middle class
and to relieve congestion and growth pressure on the larger cities.
With an urban population currently around 31 per cent of the total
population contributing to over 60 per cent of India's Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), it is projected that, due to the continuing growth, urban India
will contribute nearly 75 Per cent of the national GDP in the next 15
years.
It is for this reason that India's urban areas need to be
planned well. And planning does not mean the architecture's or business
perspective only. The most important factor in a sustainable city is its
infrastructure. Along with improving the roads, especially ring roads, building
good quality but affordable housing, modernizing public transportation and the
electricity supply, it also includes upgrading the water supply and networks, as
well as water treatment systems.
While the focus of many
government initiatives is more on the development of connecting highways or
special economic zones, five months ago the Modi government launched two
initiatives, along with the smart cities mission, which aim at improving water
sewage and water supply networks in urban areas: the Atal Mission for
Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana
('Housing for all' Scheme). Looking, at the construction sector in India, for
example the issue here of labour shortage is huge, with real-estate developers
often blaming project delays on the severe lack of qualified labour.
Skilled employment in this sector is set to rise due to a demand for
affordable housing which is expected to increase to 38 million from the current
29 million by 2030. Also the demand for warehousing space, both ambient and
cold chain in Tier-I and Tier-II cities is expected to increase since industrial
parks are being set up which will in turn increase the need for skilled
workforce in the construction sector. Accompanying the rapid growth in this
sector, there will also be the corresponding need to invest in training and
qualifying employees of the property industry. This is a diverse sector which
employs people with a variety of skills, involved in all aspects of property
across commercial, industrial, residential and agricultural sectors.
In the water supply sector, it is more than certain that many national and
international companies will be competing to construct the required water supply
and sewage networks as well as the corresponding water treatment and
purification facilities.
Here again, there is the issue of the
lack of qualified staff, and according to a German industry representative, "The
real difficulty is in the operation of treatment plants". At first this might
seem counter-intuitive, as manpower is high and comparably cheap in India,
especially among the unskilled or semi-skilled workforce. In talks with the
quoted industry expert and other representatives, however, they all have the
same demand: For the sustainable operation and maintenance of water supply and
treatment systems qualified personnel are needed for the operational
tasks.
Also in a study conducted in Pune by a German consortium
and financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, water
treatment plant owners and operators stated a clear need for skilled staff on
the working level ("Modernizing Vocational Education and Training in Water
Management", 2015).
Based on data from the 68th Round of India's
National Sample Survey Organisation, it is estimated that only 4.69 per
cent of India's total workforce has undergone formal skills training,
compared with 52 per cent in the USA, 68 per cent in the UK, 75 per cent in Germany, 80 per
cent in Japan and an astounding 96 per cent in South Korea. In all of
these countries, vocational training programmes, with their successful mix of
theory and practice (between 30 – 50 per cent), are considered a key driver for
economic growth and success.
The reason for this is simple: A
better educated workforce makes less mistakes, works more efficiently (fewer
persons are needed for one task) and generally has a better process
understanding, thus enhancing the general operation processes, which include
maintenance and repair.
Coming back to the operation and
maintenance of water supply and treatment systems in India, it is an easy
calculation to figure out that skilled personnel will not only help to staff all
the new treatment plants, but are also a key to the success of India’s smart
cities initiative: Without a functioning water system the value of a new housing
society is, in the long-run hardly higher than a slum area. Water supply and
water treatment make the difference between "just having a roof over one's head"
and a livable, valued home.
In contrast, too, to other countries,
India's real estate and construction companies cannot necessarily rely on the
government to build these facilities for their premises: Housing societies of
more than 140 units will have to build their own water sewage plant on-site and
sustain the potable water supply. Constructing a water treatment plant, even a
micro plant for a housing society, involves a huge investment which the housing
society owners will have to pay off over many years.
"What
happens in reality is that the water treatment and water supply facilities of
housing societies are completely run down or out of order, long before the
owners have paid off the Investment", said one insider, who runs a leading real
estate company in Northern India. The low level of maintenance, he continued,
can only be confronted with skilled manpower who know about the importance of
proper machine maintenance and procedures necessary to enhance the lifecycle of
a treatment plant.
Recognising the huge need for qualified staff
in water treatment plants, and based on the results of the above mentioned
study, the Indo German Competence Academy (IGCA) Private Ltd. was established in Mumbai and Pune and has started
offering vocational training courses in the field of wastewater treatment and
water purification. Training is, initially, for semi-skilled and unskilled
workers who will be qualified and trained in the training centres and
on-site, for example on the plants of its industrial partner REMONDIS,
a German international waste disposal and recycling corporation engaged in the
water sector in India.
"With our trainings in the water sector we
close the gap many housing societies, construction and real estate companies are
facing. Finally they will have access to skilled personnel for their treatment
plants," says Captain Shivaji Mahadkar, CEO and one of the Joint-Venture
partners of IGCA.
To set up the institute he joined hands with a German
training provider, VESBE. Based on the success of their training in water
management, IGCA is establishing further training areas, for
example construction, welding, plumbing an so on in accordance
with industry needs. Training in the construction sector, for example, will not
only focus on qualifying workers by enhancing their skills but also on reducing
re-work and cutting down wastage and costs for both contractors and
developers.
Jürgen Lau, the co-founder of IGCA, explains the
advantages of a trained workforce: "Construction companies and housing societies
will benefit hugely from our programme. Indian construction companies are well
aware of how to build water treatment or water supply plants. But many of them
are quite naive in their thinking ahead: Operating and maintaining the plants is
namely a huge challenge. IGCA offers to train the manpower accordingly so that
plant owners will need less staff, increase the quality of operation, reduce the
maintenance costs and enhance the lifecycle of their plants."
While there are many construction companies taking Modi's pledge for smart
cities as a construction task only, companies and also policy makers should
think about how to keep these smart cities livable and viable once they have
been constructed.
Erecting or developing a city is only a first step;
without people, culture, change, viable business – and, in particular –
maintenance, it can all fall apart within a few years.
The Indo
German Competence Academy (IGCA) was founded as a joint venture by VESBE
(Association for European Social Work, Training and Education) and the
Takshashila Trust, India in October 2015. Headquartered in Mumbai with a branch
office in Pune, IGCA intends to expand the scope of its training activities to
other VET sectors and locations around the country in the future by offering
franchises.
The further expansion of IGCA's training activities will be
mainly focussed on emerging and specialised VET sectors so as to support and
compliment the trainings at Industrial Training Institutes under the Directorate
General of Employment & Training (DGET) in India.
VESBE is a
German association, which provides training courses and apprenticeships in
Germany, and is also active in international projects in the sector of
vocational training.
- Author: Sylvia Wohlfarth-Bottermann, Co-Managing Director of the Indo-German Competence Academy