The document discusses the pivotal role of the construction industry in India's economic growth and its challenges, including inefficiencies and low productivity levels. It emphasizes the potential of artificial intelligence to enhance project management, planning, and sustainable practices within the sector. The paper advocates for integrating AI in the construction industry's operations and education to improve efficiency and address issues related to resource consumption, cost overruns, and project quality.

1. Rationalising, Reinventing and Redefining Construction
Industry Using Artificial Intelligence
*Jit Kumar Gupta
Preamble;
Construction industry is globally known and valued for its positivities in terms of;
generating employment; making valuable contribution to economy and prosperity;
promoting large scale industrialisation and propelling the overall growth of any
nation besides providing basic amenities, services and infrastructure to the
people, essential for human living, working and leisure. Efficiency and productivity
of construction sector , economic and social development of any society remains
positively connected. Known as engine of economic growth, construction sector is
known to play pivotal role in imparting quality and operational efficiency to human
living and human settlements. With rapid growth of industrialisation and
urabanisation, role, relevance and importance of construction sector has gained
currency. However, construction sector in India remains stratified and diversified
having numerous segments involving ; Commercial, Residential Institutional,
Industrial , Healthcare, Education, Entertainment besides Transportation ,Energy ,
Utility and Infrastructure construction.
In the pre-independence period, construction sector occupied a lower rating and
placing in the Indian economy when only few development projects were taken up
and industrialization was at a very low key. At the dawn of the twentieth century,
majority of Indian population lived in villages. With cities accounting for only 10%,
total population of urban India was placed at merely 25 million, in the census year
1911.Construction sector in India got a boom in the post-independence period, with
large number of projects undertake in the domain of hydro-electric power; industrial
townships; new capital cities; IITs; IIM, AIIMS etc. However, with India opting for
globalization and opening of the economy in the post 1992 period, construction
sector in India was put on fast track of growth and development . In the process,
construction sector emerged as one of the important indicators of the nation’s
development because it created large number of investment opportunities across
various related sectors of economy.
Construction and Indian Economy;
As per available data, share of construction industry in Indian economy was
placed at around 8.2%, and contribution made to GDP was of the order
670,778 crores (US$ 131 billion) at factor cost in 2011–12. Construction sector is

2. anticipated to register a CAGR of over 6% in India and is expected to reach $1.4T
by the year 2025.
Known to be labour intensive , constructions sector provides employment to more
than 49.5 million people. Construction sector has been rated as the second largest
employer next to agriculture in the country. Based on the prevailing trends, the
construction sector is visualized to play a critical and vital role in economic growth
of India besides producing structures that will add to the productivity and quality
of life. It is said that construction industry market in India works across 250 sub-
sectors with linkages across sectors. It contributes 55% share in the steel industry,
15% in the paint industry, and 30% in the glass industry. India is expected to
become the world’s 3rd largest construction market shortly. Future growth story of
India and India becoming a third largest economy globally ( $ 5 trillion ) will be
scripted by and will hinges on the operational efficiency , productivity and
sustainability of the construction sector.
Issues and Challenges
The construction sector remains highly complex involving large number of activities, right
from planning, designing, construction, operation and maintenance of buildings and
infrastructures. The construction industry is faced with numerous operational and policy
level challenges that have hindered its growth and has also led to having extremely low
productivity levels. Construction, as a sector of economy, remains plagued by numerous
problems and operational inefficiencies. These operational efficiencies have led to
extremely low productivity, when compared with other sectors, such as manufacturing.
Major challenges faced by the construction sector include; cost-inefficiencies, time over-
runs, project delays, poor work quality, uninformed decision-making, low performance in
terms of productivity, health , safety and labour shortages. Majority of prevailing
challenges and issues faced by the construction sector can be enumerated in terms of;
 Consumer of large Resources; Construction sector globally, has major
implications as consumer of large resources, energy water and wood besides
generating enormous waste. Studies and analysis made have concluded that
within the construction sector, buildings are known to consume about 16% of
world’s fresh water withdrawal; 25% of wood harvested globally; 30% of raw
material extracted from the planet earth; 40% of global energy consumption;
35% of world's CO2 emission; 40% of Municipal solid waste generated; 50% of
Ozone depleting CFC’s ; 30% of the residents having sick building syndrome
and 40-45 % of global warming.
 Promoter of Climate Change; With majority of operations based on linear
principles, construction sector is known to consume large volume/amount of
non -renewable resources besides generation of enormous waste . Known to
be marked with dualities and contradictions, construction sector in general and
built environment in particular, is primarily responsible for and is known to
have significant impact on environment and consumption of resources leading

3. to climate change , rising temperature , global warming and increasing carbon
footprints
 Creation of large built up area; As per Mcenzie. McKinsey Global Institute
Report; India’s Urban Awakening: Building Inclusive cities, sustaining economic
growth,2010; India needs to construct large volume of built space in urban
areas, to the tune of 700-900 million sqm annually, for catering to the basic
needs of shelter and working for the additional population in the urban areas
till the year 2030.
 Large Population; India has already become the most populated country
globally, with population placed at 1.41 billion in 2023. As per estimates made,
India will have a population of 1.6 billion by 2050, with half of the population
living in the urban areas. All this will require construction of large number of
buildings besides creating supportive infrastructure for the population living
both in urban and rural settlements. Accordingly, construction sector will have
to be geared and made more efficient and productive to meet the emerging
needs of the built environment and creating basic amenities, services and
infrastructure , both within and outside the human settlements.
 Lack of Management; Despite numerous challenges, having far reaching
implications for the growth and development of any community and nation,
Construction sector remains most unprofessionally managed sector of
economy . Construction sector is plagued with numerous operational problems
and challenges in terms of manpower, resources, quality, operational
efficiency, productivity etc., that have hindered its growth and development.
 Unskilled manpower; Despite involving large investment and ranked as
second largest employment generator; making large contribution to national
wealth and creating large space for industries, still the construction sector
remains largely unskilled, employing manpower, majority of which has little skill
and expertise in the domain of the construction. This invariably leads to
creeping of large number of operational inefficiencies in the construction sector
 Lack of Technology; Construction sector remains largely human driven with
least input of technology at the grass root level. Technology has been
embedded in few large projects and that too by few of the reputed construction
companies. Low induction of technologies has adversely impacted the
efficiency, productivity and quality of the built environment and other
infrastructure created in the country.
 Time Overruns; Majority of construction projects invariably suffer from the
malaise of cost-overrun, with the result either these projects are abandoned
due to non-availability of requisite funds to close the projects, or the agencies
have to source additional funds for its completion, making the project

4. expensive, adversely impacting its economic viability. In case of infrastructure
construction projects, these projects invariably impact the capacity of public
sector agencies to fund more projects. In addition, it also leads to higher
levies/fees to be paid by the community due to cost over-run.
 Cost overruns; In addition to time-overrun, construction projects invariably
face delay in its completion within the given budget/project-cost . Delayed
construction projects invariably lead to higher projects cost and additional time-
span for construction, besides non-availability of the benefits of the projects
during additional time period. Particularly in road projects like widening,
construction of over-bridges, under passes etc. cost-overruns cause enormous
inconvenience and economic loss and higher cost to the communities and
cities.
 Poor Quality; In the absence of technology and carrying out proper checks
and balances, large number of construction projects also face the issue of
quality, which invariably increases the life-cycle cost of the project due to
repeated maintenance, upkeep and replacement of defected components.
Poor quality of project also holds implications in terms of usability of the project
and other related problems.
Looking at the major implication of construction sector defined above and large number
of construction projects being taken up in the urban sector(Roads, Railways, Smart
cities, Swachh Bharat Mission, AMRUT, Energy, Communication etc., ) and need for
creating large built-up volume under PMAY U&R , it becomes important that construction
sector must be made cost-effective, time-efficient, lean, smart, qualitative, efficient and
productive and should be managed more efficiently and professionally ; failing which
India will never ever be able to achieve the target of zero- carbon by the year 2070.
Applicability;
Looking holistically, construction sector involves large number of variables, options,
activities, manpower, machinery, resources and data which needs to be handled during
the entire timeline of the project, right from conceptualization to completion. At present,
in majority of cases, these activities are being carried out using available manpower and
skills, which has its own limitation. Accordingly, success of the project largely remains
human driven. Looking at the enormity of resources , manpower, finances , machinery
involved and need to serve larger interests of the nation, economy, environment and
ecology, it surely calls for making the construction sector more effective, efficient,
qualitative and productive. Few of the options which can be leveraged in the construction
sector by using Artificial intelligence have been enumerated below;
 Inducting Data Based Project Management; Construction sector invariably
suffers from the problem of lack of effective data management, due to large scale
human involvement and intervention. In majority of cases ,data related to project

5. remains segmented and fragmented. There exists little opportunity of having
complete and accurate data on a single platform. In the absence of quality and
inadequate data , majority of decision making remain both ad-hoc and subjective.
Artificial intelligence holds enormous capacity to integrate the available data by
pooling data from different sources on a common platform, to help project
management team in rationalising the decision making of the complex task
involved in the construction projects. Accordingly large number of anomalies
prevailing in the construction sector due to human limitations, can be easily
overcome by the introduction of data based project management using artificial
intelligence.
 Rationalising and Economising Planning and designing ; Since Artificial
intelligence holds capacity and capability of decision making based on the given
data base, accordingly, if the realistic parameters and scope of any construction
project can be defined then Artificial intelligence can help in finding numerous
options of planning and designing of the projects, in a minimum time span.
However, while Artificial intelligence holds enormous capacity to plan and design,
but it will always be critical that solutions provided by Artificial intelligence must be
checked manually at the design stage, in order to overcome any distortions or
mistakes creeping into the design solution by feeding inaccurate parameters.
 Promoting Problem Solving; Finding appropriate, cost-effective , planning
design, operation and maintenanace solutions in the construction projects always
remain a challenge in the manually driven construction sector due to human
limitations . These challenges can be easily overcome by the introduction of
the artificial intelligence, which holds enormous capacity and capability to provide
best of the options/solutions for the problems encountered during the
construction stage of the project.
 Promoting Productivity; Artificial intelligence offers enormous, opportunities to
make Construction sector more qualitative, productive, skilled and operationally
efficient by replacing manual work involved in the project through machine
learning. Artificial intelligence can help in defining precisely work flow of various
construction components, which can be used for overcoming duplications and
replications of different processes and making optimum use of available
resources.
 Managing Manpower ; In the prevailing scenario, in large sized projects,
involving deployment of large number of manpower on regular basis, managing
the manpower deployed and measuring their productivity and operational
efficiency always remains a challenge for the project team. Artificial intelligence,
holds enormous capacity of not only mapping the manpower deployed but also
providing data related to their work output on daily basis, for effectively managing
the project and also rationalising the need of manpower required. Artificial
intelligence can also help in rational re-deployment of the manpower in the project
based on the requirement in a particular area/activity.

6.  Managing Stores and Inventories; Being data driven, Artificial intelligence can
help in project team to have a ready reckoner related to material management for
the project, including the material available in the store, material required
immediately and over a period of time. It can help in reducing inventories, pilferage
in the store and managing waste/ loss of materials from the stores when driven
manually. Artificial intelligence can help in defining timeline for requirement of
different materials and its need at the project site, so as to tie up with the supplier
in order to avoid delay in the completion of the project, due to non-availability of
required materials. Similarly, requirement and use of machinery in the construction
project can also be optimised through the effective use of Artificial intelligence.
 Promoting Sustainability; Since use of energy and water can be easily
predicted, monitored and managed through Artificial intelligence, accordingly
project can be made more sustainable by optimising the use of the energy and
water in the project. Artificial intelligence, can also lower the cost of the project by
promoting saving on the cost of energy and water used in project besides helping
in minimizing its consumption.
 Empowering Construction Sector; By large scale digitization, artificial
intelligence can empower the construction sector by eliminating number of
prevailing issues related to cost-overrun, time-over run , delay in completing the
projects and effectively monitoring and managing the project besides ensuring
optimum utilization of the available manpower, machinery and materials.
 Making Construction Sector Technology driven; Majority of practices in
Construction sector remain onsite and manual, which are the prime reasons for
the sector to be inefficient and less productive. Making Artificial intelligence
integral part of the construction sector, can help in introducing technologies on
large scale to make the sector more cost-effective, qualitative, productive and time
-efficient. Using drones for monitoring and evaluation of the progress of the
project; using 3D as an option for construction of buildings; using virtual reality for
assessing/ evaluating the projects; using circular economy as an option of project
planning , designing and using materials; Making use of the state of art
construction technologies; Making payments; Managing Cost and Funds;
signing contract documents; Preparing Detailed Project Reports; Preparing
Project Estimates; Tendering of the project; Evaluating the Tenders; Preparing
Progress Reports; Promoting collaboration and co-ordination; Managing number
of construction projects simultaneously; optimising available resources and
manpower resources within a construction company etc. can go a long way in
making construction sector technology driven.
Way Forward;
Despite the fact that construction industry remains vital for promoting economy and
prosperity, still it remains a laggard in terms of use of technology. Despite deploying large
manpower and have spread over the entire length and breadth of the country, still
construction sector remains largely manual driven. It has been reckoned to be one of

7. the least digitized sectors of economy. Absence of digitization and involving large
number of unskilled man- power makes the management of projects complex ,
cumbersome and cost/resource intensive. Considering the disasters striking humanity
more frequently like pandemic Covid 19; it has been realized that construction industry
must be made technology - led by embracing digitization; rapidly improving technological
capacity to overcome challenges posed by labour shortage and maintain the operational
efficiency and quality of the construction sector. Induction of Artificial intelligence, in
construction sector has the ability and capacity of achieving significant process
improvements, promoting cost-efficiency, reducing production times, improving safety
and helping in achieving pre-defined sustainability goals. Considering the fact that
construction sector is always evolving, devolving, never fixed and never finite , it becomes
all the more important that construction sector must be made technology driven rather
than human-led. In order to induct technology and Artificial Intelligence into the
construction sector following options are being suggested;
 Making Artificial Intelligence Integral part of teaching – learning process;
Considering the role relevance and importance of technology in making
construction sector most cost-effective, time- efficient, minimum consumer of
energy and resources besides generator of minimum waste, artificial intelligence
must be made integral part of course curricula and teaching-learning of all
institutions involved in the planning, designing, construction, operation and
maintenance of built environment. Exposure to Artificial intelligence should not
be restricted only to any semester but should be taught during the entire duration
of the course along with its applicability in different typologies of construction
sector. All technical institutions/universities must be mandated to set up Artificial
Intelligence labs in their institutions in order to make the students understand the
context, role, relevance and applicability of Artificial intelligence in the construction
sector.
 Skilling Manpower involved in Construction Sector; Considering the fact that
large volume of construction is being taken up by the public sector and parastatal
agencies , accordingly it will be appropriate that agencies like Central and State
Public works Departments; Housing Boards; Development Authorities;
Improvement Trusts; Indian Railways, Metro Corporations, Bridge Construction
Corporations etc., are mandated to include , involve and make artificial intelligence
integral part of their professional services and construction practices. These
agencies must be asked to earmark dedicated percentage of total construction
budget for skilling the existing manpower, promoting R&D and applicability of
technology in the construction sector ,to make it more qualitative and cost-
effective. In addition, considering the fact that large volume of construction is being
taken up by the private sector in terms of national highways, overbridges, bye-
passes, housing complexes, shopping malls, SEZs, large industrial complexes,

8. real estate projects, townships etc., it will also be appropriate that private sector
should also opt for using Artificial Intelligence , as part of their construction
practices. This will help in making construction sector more cost-effective and
profitable by reducing construction cost, effectively managing the project, lowering
inventories, minimising waste ,optimizing available resources and existing
manpower etc. NAREDCO, Builders/Developers Association need to co-operate
and collaborate to leverage the distinct advantages of Artificial Intelligence for
making the construction sector more competitive and qualitative.
 Promoting interface between IT and Construction Industry; Considering the
fact that India is known to be the global leader in the domain of soft skill involving
IT Industry and also has enormous dedicated spending in the construction and
infrastructure sector , accordingly it will be critical and relevant that both these
sectors must co-operate, collaborate and support each other, in creating
appropriate skilled manpower and evolving dedicated cost-effective
programs/Softwares etc., for using IT, ITES and Artificial Intelligence to make.
construction sector more cost -effective, time- efficient and productive. IT sector
should take up on mission mode, to embed technology in construction sector by
providing cost-effective and qualitative soft skilled options and programs.
 Creating a Policy Framework; Considering the overarching operational
framework of the construction sector, spanning numerous sectors and its
implications on, humanity, communities, resources, employment, economy,
sustainability; National and state Governments must come out with a policy
framework, for incentivizing the construction sector by inducting technology/
Artificial Intelligence. Policy should provide for setting up institutional framework
for promoting technologies; promoting research and development and providing
concessions in taxes, levies, fees charged in the construction sector for using
Artificial Intelligence & other technologies.
Bibliography;
 Sankhe, Vittal ,Richard etl; India's urban awakening: Building inclusive cities, economic
growth Report; Mckinsey Global institute April 1, 2010
 Sofia, Lukumon, Lukmanetl; Artificial intelligence in the construction industry: A review of
present status, opportunities and future challenges
 Wikipedia, encyclopedia Artificial Intelligence in Construction Industry
 Saigal k; The Indian Construction Industry: A Brief Summary
 Author;
* Jit Kumar Gupta
Former Advisor; Town Planning, PUDA; Punjab &
Founder Director, College of Architecture, IET Bhaddal, Punjab
#344, Sector 40-A, Chandigarh-160036
Email -- jit.kumar1944@gmail.com,,Mob- 090410-26414