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Top1. Indian Construction Sector And Use Of Technology
The importance of the Indian construction sector to the Indian economy and the socio-economic development of the country is very high (Planning Commission 2011, Gupta et al., 2009). As an economic activity construction is the second largest activity after agriculture in India (Doloi et al., 2011, Planning Commission 2011). Statistics available in the public domain highlight the current contribution of the sector and the projected growth of the sector (Sawhney et al., 2011a). Regardless of the economic importance and employment generation of the sector, issues such as low productivity, limited mechanization and lack of professionally qualified employees plague the industry (Doloi et al., 2011, Sawhney et al., 2011a). Lack of standards and low use of technology across the construction supply chain is one of the weak points of the industry (Planning Commission 2011). There is strong evidence of less than optimum performance of Indian construction projects and this trend is growing. Projects are reportedly failing across the key performance measures including cost, time and quality performances (Doloi et al., 2011; Sawhney et al., 2011a). By earlier estimate, over 40% of Indian projects suffer from poor performance (Satyanarayana & Iyer 1996; Iyer and Jha, 2005). In a study comparing the performance of international development projects in India, China, Bangladesh, and Thailand, Ahsan and Gunawan (2010) reported that construction projects in India showed the worst schedule performance. A status report published by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation highlighted that out of the 951 projects being monitored 309 projects have cost overruns and 474 projects are behind schedule. Reasons for these problems range from land acquisition, improper planning and budgeting, to poor coordination and monitoring of the projects (Singh, 2010).
The Indian Planning Commission recently highlighting the importance of the sector recommended the use of “modern management techniques and efficient technologies” for the growth of the sector so as to fulfil the demands being placed on it by the economic development of the country (Planning Commission 2011). One such technology that can benefit the Indian construction sector is Building Information Modelling (BIM). Using the linkages between technology, process and people that BIM platform provides, this study is aimed at determining and understanding the drivers and barriers to its implementation in India. Teasing out these issues ultimately yields insights as to how the Indian construction sector can benefit from BIM in years to come.