PUNE, February 6: Disputing the assumption that there was no need to mechanise the construction industry since there is a large body of unemployed people, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) chancellor MS Gore pointed out to the lack of trained personnel. He stressed the need for trained personnel in the context of global competition. Gore, who inaugurated the fourth national roundtable on human resource development in the construction industry and infrastructure development sector, suggested that the industry should contribute towards creating a skilled workforce.This raised the question of who would pay for the training since managements tended to feel threatened by a trained workforce. Gore sought to dismiss this perception that a trained person would necessarily be combative, pointing to the advantages of skilled personnel. The issue of skill upgradation involved raising the levels of blue-collar workers, Gore said. He suggested that an improvement in the training of women centred around the dual issuesof getting them enrolled and then getting them accepted in a traditionally male-dominated field as supervisors or contractors. To this end, he said that acceptance would increase through the intervention of women's organisations.
Earlier, Pradeep Kapoor, chairman of the managing committee of the National Institute of Construction Management and Research (NICMAR), which has organised the roundtable, said that NICMAR and the International Labour Oganisation (ILO) had carried out three studies on the theme "Leveraging skills of labour and career promotion of women for efficiency in construction". This is the theme of the roundtable.
Kapoor, who is also managing director of Trafalgar House Construction India Ltd, urged for the mechanisation of the construction industry since it is the largest employer after agriculture. However, it is also the least organised and professionalised, a situation which NICMAR is working to change. On the international front, the perception is that the quality of most Indianconstruction, with a few notable exceptions, was uniformly shabby.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
