Gujarat's devastating earthquake has brought into focus the issue of construction quality, or the lack of it. It is a case of late insight, but experts say the quake would not have claimed those lakh of lives if only the buildings had been planned to be quake-proof, Gujarat being in the thick of the seismic zone. Builders are now doing a rethink on not just what goes into a building, but also how it does and in what proportions. S Santosh, Managing Director of Hi-Tech Structures, has already been at it since 1993 after his five-year stint in the US: Scientific pre-engineered pre-fabricated constructions. indiamarkets quizzed Santosh to know about the man, the machine, the material and the method that seems different from the mundane.

indiamarkets: What exactly is pre-engineered construction all about?
Santosh: It is a concept wherein all structures of construction are prefabricated and one has to merely assemble them using nuts and bolts. It is a very scientific method of building with no approximations involved, whatsoever, unlike the conventional construction work that goes on in India.
The fabrications are either made of steel or precast concrete, depending on the structure to be built.

indiamarkets: How does the prefab method score over the conventional mode of construction?
Santosh: The biggest advantage prefab offers is the cost factor. There are lesser number of labourers involved on site as most of the work is done in the controlled atmosphere of our factory. The workforce at the site is needed only for the assembling part of the job, which takes hardly a few days as opposed to months, in the conventional labour-driven method. When construction stretches on for months, besides the cost, there are also accrued problems. Workers play truant, bunking for long stretches during festivals etc and when a guy replaces another, he has no clue where his predecessor had left off. This lack of co-ordination results in shoddy construction.
Moreover, this method affords the luxury of parallel, as opposed to sequential, construction. That is, the client can carry on with his other allied work while his building is being assembled. Also the prefab method needs no power on site, saving the client that much more money and hassle to gain power sanctions.
Besides, in this method, there is no pilfering of cement, one of the major hassles faced during building work. And then the client profits in other ways due to the quick occupation.
In short, the prefab method is like a readymade garment, in contrast to the `tailored' construction. Always, materials shipped out of a factory have a distinct edge over their conventional counterparts.

indiamarkets: What about the curing part? Does the prefab method render a building leakless?
Santosh: Sure, that's another advantage. In this method, we can afford the luxury of curing the material en masse. There is no question of pouring water over slabs, we dip the slab completely in curing tanks at our factory before they are shipped out. Thus, work goes on at the site, come rain or shine.
Let me quote an example. A gentleman approached me to put up a three-storey software facility in Koramangla (Bangalore) with a two-month deadline. With merely nine people on site, we put it up in 20 days flat. The amusing part is that he had to hire 40 people later for the interiors job alone! In fact, I happened to pass by that area recently and found that a building on the adjoining plot, work on which had already begun at that time, still stands unfinished. This apart, there is the cargo warehouse for MSIL which we built over a weekend.

An 126' wide, 20' high garment manufacturing unit at Peenya, which was put up in 6 weeks: Attractive and quake resistant

indiamarkets: Most of the buildings in the US _ residential, industrial or office complex _ are said to be pre-engineered, a concept prevalent since the 60s. Why then has India been slow on the uptake of this idea?
Santosh: I would lay the blame on the consultant-contractor nexus that has been and is still at play in India. A prefab construction would mean depriving the chain of beneficiaries of their profit margins made by way of pilfered materials and other cascading costs. But the people here too are to blame. One wouldn't mind shelling out a fortune for a fancy car, but when it comes to one's own building, a `cheap' contractor would be preferred over a machine-operated scientific mode.
Incidentally, tubular structures _ introduced by my father T Samuel in 1961 after he returned from the US _ were much in vogue till my technology rendered them obsolete! This is because rigid steel frame structures which replaced trusses, are faster to make. Besides, they are more durable and easy to put up, though they need a lot of engineering calcuations. Yet, it is not tough, considering the computerised format we have developed to render them accurate. In fact, that's one more reason why my price per unit never varies no matter how huge the building as everything is right there, fixed on the computer.

indiamarkets: In the wake of the recent quake, we would like to ask you this: Are your buildings quake-proof for sure?
Santosh: 100 per cent. In fact, that is my USP that I tell my customers these days. At the US institute where I trained as a structural engineer, one could not just get past the thesis without subjecting one's building model to the harshest of tests. In fact, the model would even be put through a simulated earthquake, with over 3000 vibrations shaking it vigorously. The building laws there, perhaps due to the fact that the California belt is in the thickest of the seismic zone, are among the toughest. Do you know that an earthquake of the magnitude of 9.1 on the Richter Scale claimed barely eight people there, while the recent Gujarat tremor measuring 8.3 R snuffed out almost a lakh lives? This is enough to prove the direct correlation between quake damage and the quality of buildings on the land.

indiamarkets: Are your materials eco-friendly?
Santosh: They are as safe as they can get. Besides using flyash, we have developed our own additives over the past five years that, when added to cement, increase the strength of concrete by 60-70 per cent. At the moment, I would not be able to give you the name as I have applied for a patent for it. I think it would suffice to say that it is a plastic-based compound that would stand in good stead for a builder.

indiamarkets:What are the other areas you specialise in?
Santosh: Besides rigid frame steel structures and precast concrete slab mezzanines, we deal with space frame structures, cold storage buildings, multi-storey car parks, precast foundations and walls. Marriage halls, warehouses, petrol pumps and office buildings _ all these can be built in days.

indiamarkets: Who are the kinds of people who approach you? Do you get orders for residential areas too?
Santosh: Generally, I stick to industrial premises and office complexes, though I have been approached recently for a residential building as well. To quote an example of the kind of work we do, we added a pre-cast mezzanine floor for Featherlite office on Mysore Road in 15 days, even as the rest of the office continued to function normally. That was the best way to solve a space crunch while expanding, or the office would have had to be moved further away from the city, incurring add-on costs. I am now told that the new arrangement paid for itself within three months due to the sheer volume of the business generated there. More and more people are now recognising the benefits of this type of construction. TVS Group, MICO, Ponds Group, Elgi Group ...they all are our clients.

indiamarkets: What do you perceive as the role of the internet in the construction industry?
Santosh: Terrific. I think it opens a world of exposure and awareness of trends/developments. There are thousands of sites on construction, many of which I find very relevant. I for one browse the net very often for research material. Besides, a businessman can find a lot of info on the MNCs who plan to enter the Indian segment and use it to his advantage.

Santosh may be contacted at hitech@vsnl.com.