'Mfar has decided to go into industrial, infra projects'

Mfar Constructions Pvt Ltd is an associate company of Galfar Engineering and Contracting SAOG, Muscat. B.K. Dhar, CEO, Mfar Constructions Pvt Ltd tells Sandeep Menezes about the company's future plans in India's infrastructure sector. What is Mfar's future growth, expansion plans?  Mfar started its operations with multi-storey buildings, especially commercial complexes, residential complexes, IT and software parks, and institutional buildings like colleges and schools. Initially, we started working for property developers, and subsequently we added institutional clients, who run the colleges and schools. We now have some corporate clients as well - we have built a corporate office at Bangalore for Tesco & Satyam, and campuses for Wipro in Kolkata and Bhubaneshwar (Orissa). Mfar has taken up projects not only in the south but also in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Bihar and National Capital Region. Tell us about your long term business strategy?  Mfar has decided to go into industrial and infrastructure projects. In the industrial segment Mfar has already received two reasonably large projects from two clients - one from the Vedanta Group at Goa and another one at Chhattisgarh. Mfar has started infrastructure activities in a small way, by completing some concrete road projects in Mangalore. This is just the starting point and Mfar is likely to get some more industrial and infrastructure projects. Moreover, Mfar's parent organisation, Galfar Engineering - Muscat, due to their financial strength and qualification criteria, have already received a few jobs in India, independently, and we are their first choice sub-contractor, so we will be working on some of these jobs for them. Going forward, how do you foresee India's infrastructure growth story?  India's infrastructure growth story is once again picking up after the recession of the last two years. There is likely to be tremendous growth in the power sector, airport infrastructure, sea ports, roads and highways. India is growing at a very fast pace and to support this growth, infrastructure has to be developed. What is the current extent of quality manpower shortage in India's EPC sector?  After the recession of 2009, the economy has once again started picking up in 2010. This boom is likely to result in creation of additional jobs in the construction and engineering sector. White collar jobs shortfall is likely to be about 2,00,000 equally split between engineers and supervisory levels. Skilled and unskilled worker requirement is likely to be ten times that of white collar jobs ie to the tune of 20,00,000. Tell us about the infrastructure segments that are witnessing maximum skilled manpower shortage? The infrastructure segments witnessing maximum skilled manpower shortage include roads, airports, ports and other infrastructure facilities. Moreover, many affordable housing projects are being executed and these are also having acute shortage of skilled manpower. Some specialist infrastructure projects like power plants, effluent & sewage treatment plants, requiring special skills, are unable to find the right caliber people. Has this manpower shortage resulted in exorbitant wage hike across the EPC sector? Manpower shortage has resulted in exorbitant wage hikes to the tune of nearly 100% as compared to a year back. Does the current skilled manpower shortage faced across infrastructure sector have potential to derail this growth story? Tell us about Mfar's initiatives to deal with this skilled manpower shortage? There is an acute shortage of skilled manpower in the construction industry and this is likely to be a constraint on the infrastructure growth. As against a requirement of approximately 35 million skilled construction workers, the availability is only 32 million. This shortfall is likely to increase in the years to come if immediate steps are not taken to train the construction workers on a war footing. There are hardly any training institutes imparting skill development training to the construction workers. Mfar has tried to solve this major problem by carrying out regular training programmes for developing its staff and enhancing the skill levels of its workers. Mfar has a team of trainers who regularly go to the various sites for conducting training, both theoretical and practical, for the construction workers. This training is specially meant for the masons, carpenters, steel fixers and other tradesmen working on the sites. Furthermore, as a company policy, each employee has to undergo 40 hours of training per year, based on a structured programme developed by the training department. Mfar allocates separate funds for the conduct of training. Even during the worldwide recession, Mfar continued with its policy of allocating five percent of its profit for the training of personnel each year.

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