Critical Review of Government Interventions on the application of Precast Construction Technology in the Housing Projects

The rapid rise in the demand for housing coupled with the slow project delivery mechanism is unable to bridge the gap between the supply and demand across the globe. Consequently, supply backlogs are increasing and adding pressure on the government agencies to meet the required demand. A major roadblock is encountered by the government agencies in the realization of their plans & policies- the barrier of extremely slow construction and the massive rise in the cost of construction. It is recognized that conventional construction technology is one of the primary reasons for the imbalance in the execution of most of the real estate projects in the residential sector of India. As per (Nanyam et al., 2017), a huge housing shortage cannot be supplied only through the use of conventional construction technologies. Studies from countries like Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa, Dubai, and China among others also indicate an immediate need to shift to more dependable, faster, and sustainable construction technologies to suffice the growing demand (Rahman PEng et al., 2018), (Yunus & Yang, 2011), (Aigbavboa et al., 2017), (Elkaftangui & Basem, 2018), (Pan et al., 2018). As per (O‘Neill & Organ, 2016), after World War I, European countries started the use of precast components for house construction. These countries were exporting and importing these components from each other. In the UK, the alternate construction technology was christened ‗Non-Traditional housing‘ and Building Research Establishment (Ross, 2002). In Britain, the government gave huge subsidies for the prefabrication technologies till the late 1940s. The dominance of North America and European countries was seen in the prefabrication construction in these countries. However, these countries also repeatedly faced the opposition from various stakeholders for instance Britain faced huge opposition from the various professionals for the use of prefabrication over traditional technology due to apprehensions like loss of job, structure safety, increased cost, skilled labour requirement, uncertain future among others (Shen et al., 2019), (Hamzeh et al., 2017), (O‘Neill & Organ, 2016), (Ross, 2002).

As the study aims to comprehend the Indian context, Singapore and Malaysia are identified as case studies for understanding the impact of government policies in promoting the prefabrication in construction, especially in housing. Three primary reasons behind the chosen countries are – 1) Both the countries are in Asia and hence the ecosystem is similar 2) both the countries are working on the promotion of prefabrication for the last 60 years and laid many long-term policy interventions, 3) Singapore is a developed country whereas Malaysia is trying to be in the league of developed countries with the help of construction advancements among others. The policy is a tool through which Government or the policymakers practice their authority to fulfill the objectives (Colebatch, 2018) of any program for the welfare of the society. To perform a Systematic Literature review, Papers from three databases -Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar were considered. Total papers were more than 400, which were filtered after removing duplicates and not related to the subject. A total of 119 papers were considered; 29 papers were exclusively on countries, 56 papers were on barriers, and opportunities and 9 papers were on policies. Rest was on time, cost, quality, design, etc. Government interventions to promote the adoption of prefabrication construction technologies amongst the various stakeholders can be in various forms, details of a few of them are given in Table 1 below-

Developing countries initiated several reform-based incentive policies/schemes to give impetus to the application of offsite construction technologies. Precast construction technology (PCT) is considered one of the most suitable technologies that meet the requirements of the housing sector. (Zhou et al., 2019). SINGAPORE- In Singapore, the Government agency, Housing Development Board, is the main supplier of housing in the country. Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) later Building and Construction Authority (BCA) is the custodian body managing the construction activities/ policies in Singapore (S. Gao et al., 2018). The government initiated the prefabrication in 1963 & then in 1972 but was not successful as local contractors were not able to manage it and foreign contractors were not able to adapt to the local conditions (Park et al., 2011). Singapore launched three major road maps - First Construction Productivity Roadmap to increase the construction productivity and standardization of components in the year 2011, the Second Construction Productivity Roadmap to increase DfMA (design for manufacturing assembly) in 2015, and Research and Development Road map wherein 35 technologies were identified in the year 2016 (Release, 2016). Increased housing demand for housing and heavy reliance on foreign workers/laborers made it an absolute necessity to employ the industrialized building components for the housing projects. HDB tried to revamp the use of prefab technologies for the buildings in the year 1981. It‘s initiative in the form of interest-free loans to the contractors employing prefabrication in their projects. It also purchased prefabrication manufacturing units. Also, negative construction productivity growth enabled HDB to reinforce the use of prefabrication in the private sector. It introduced Buildability Score Regulations in the year 2001 or Buildable Design Score (Park et al., 2011), this score also encouraged the use of prefabricated toilets, PPV units, and other such repetitive components. The majority of the Landbank in the country is with Government and private developers purchase it through a bidding process. Any project on these lands is known as Project on Government Land Sales (GLS) sites. As per (BCA, 2017), (Release, 2016), the adoption of DfMA was made compulsory for projects on these sites in the year 2014. Incentives in terms of interest-free loans, and relaxation of the gross floor area. Prefabricated Prefinished Volumetric Construction (PPVC) has become very popular in Singapore because of the modularity, significant reduction in time, government incentives, and assistance (Xu et al., 2020). MALAYSIA The government of Malaysia is encouraging the use of Industrialized Building System (IBS) construction technology through

System (IBS) is used in the country to cover all the prefabrication technologies and automation processes. In one of the very important announcements in budget 2004, a road map for the use of IBS technology in government projects was introduced wherein a minimum of 50% IBS components were required in these projects. As per the construction industry Development Board (CIDB), the Malaysia IBS core manual was developed to calculate IBS components in any building. (DBS Group Research, 2017) (Ismail et al., 2012). A detailed study of the Malaysian context is undertaken to enable a stronger interpretation in Table 2.

INDIA- In India, prefabrication was introduced as early as 1948 with the establishment of Hindustan Prefab Limited (HPL) to facilitate and execute prefabrication projects. In 1952, HPL constructed Delhi Development Authority‘s (DDA) flats with the prefab components. In 1964-65, a 100% prefabricated four-floor building at Vikas Bhawan was constructed in Delhi. A decade later in 1973, 27 storeyed prefabricated high-rise housing building at Petit Hall Mumbai was constructed by a private developer. Excluding the three lower floors, the rest 24 floors were 100% prefabricated with a large panel system. In 1972, BG Shirke Group introduced 3S technology (Safetly, Strength & Speed) to resolve the problem of Mass Housing and has approximately delivered 2 million housing in five decades. However, the use of precast was very limited and there was only a handful of building projects across the country despite successful implementation. There were barriers like lack of expertise, a limited number of manufacturing units, increased cost, heavy reliance on skilled labors and high-end machinery among others that impeded the use of precast in buildings. Use of precast increased in infrastructure projects since the 90s. In 2011-12, DDA announced the construction of 50,000 houses for EWS & LIG with precast technology; this gave the desired impetus to the precast industry. Private developers in South and West parts of the country started employing precast in various projects ranging from housing, hospitality, commercial to industrial. With the liberalization in the foreign policies, overseas companies started supplying equipment for the manufacturing of precast components. Companies from Finland, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, and New Zealand among others were the major players. per PMAY (U). As a part of this, ―the Government of India emphasized the need to accelerate the adoption of new construction technologies to fast track and improve quality of construction under the PMAY (U)– Housing For All Mission (PMAY_HFAU)‖. MoHUA successfully conducted a Global Housing Technology Challenge - India (GHTC- India) to identify the innovative housing technologies from across the globe which are cost-effective, speedier, sustainable, and disaster-resilient and ensure a higher quality of construction of houses, meeting diverse geo-climatic conditions and desired functional needs. (BMTPC Handbook, 2020). A set of 54 new/advanced proven and innovative technologies were identified under GHTC-India through Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC). To give impetus to these technologies, the Government of India through BMTPC initiated the construction of Demonstration Housing in the name of Light House Projects (LHPs) to showcase the field application of these technologies. These LHPs are acting as live laboratories for stakeholders involved in the housing projects to see and learn the execution of these technologies on site. Also, under this vertical, the government is trying to develop and nurture future technologies through ―Affordable Sustainable Housing Accelerator (ASHA) – India‖. Under the PMAY-HFAU, it is estimated that 11.2 million houses will be constructed by 2022 in the 75th year of independence. Out of aboutmillion houses that have been constructed/under construction to date; around 1.5 million are using these new innovative technologies. (BMTPC Handbook, 2020). To promote this technology many government agencies like BMTPC, National Buildings Construction Corporation Ltd. (NBCC), Central Public Works Department (CPWD), National Building Code (NBC), and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) among others have included it in their codes or demonstrated housing project using it. NBC 2016 has also added a separate section ( 7A under Part 6) providing recommendations on the sizes, design considerations, erection, transportation, and usage of prefabricated concrete elements in synchronization with the recommendations for mass housing given by BMTPC (NBC 2016, 2016). All these policy frameworks, schemes, and incentives show the efforts of the government of India in making PCT a widespread technology for housing projects; but the application is still very limited. Few significant government projects include DDA housing Project (Delhi), BDA Housing project (Bangalore), CIDCO mass housing project (Navi Mumbai), SRA slum re-development (Mumbai) etc. Tata Peenya (Bangalore), Commune-1(Bangalore), Lakeside (Chennai), IT SEZ (Hyderabad), MLCP (Mumbai), OP Jindal University, Novotel Ibis Como Hotel (Chennai), Supertech Eco Village (G. Noida), projects in precast is still less than approx. 1% of the total building projects.

In Malaysia, prefabrication practices are primarily adopted by the government sector while the private sector is lagging despite a series of government interventions. However, Singapore has made many advancements in employing this technology due to the land crunch and huge demand for housing in the country coupled with incentive measures and mandatory regulations. It is also identified that in China despite a series of governmental initiatives, prefabrication technology has not received the desired acceptance due to reasons like cost, skilled labors availability, manufacturing units availability, transportation, restrictive design, safety, apprehensions of job loss, installation, machinery, huge investment, structure safety among others.

DfMA- design for manufacturing assembly, PPVC- Prefabricated Prefinished Volumetric Construction, GLS- Government Land Sales, GHTC- Global Housing Technology Challenge (detailed comparative table 3 as appendix-1)

need is visible for an agency to maintain the record of such projects along with the details of all the manufacturing companies. This data will help in statistically comprehending the employment of the technology and will also help in mapping the government plans and actual progression at the grass-root level. Singapore‘s policy to promote prefab is significantly effective; however, considering the huge housing demand, a need is established to focus on the barriers like manufacturing units, lower taxes on transportation, economic incentives to reduce the cost, and interest rates on loans among others. Also, a government agency can be made responsible to regulate, promote and assist the precast projects. As each building project is required to be sanctioned by the competent authority; likewise there is an urgent need for a custodian body that can register prefab projects. Government should provide some scoring system concerning the percentage of precast employed in the projects like the buildability score in Singapore. This score should get benefits/tax rebates/ reduced taxes in the transportation of the precast components. To summarize, India is paving its path effectively in the use of prefabrication technology through awareness programmes and live project to demonstrate the technology. Through various interventions, it is observed that mandatory regulations helped in increasing the adoption rate for this technology but are not able to clear the apprehensions associated with prefabrication. Thus, continuous training/skill development/awareness programs reinforce the need and benefits of the technology in any ecosystem. Economic incentives like tax rebates, interest-free loans, relaxation in GFA etc help in encouraging the use of technology provided the required manufacturing, transportation, and other support is available.

1. Act, C., African, S., Africa, S., & Report, K. (2021). The Construction Industry Development Board CIDB CIDB

MALAYSIA 25 YEARS & BEYOND.

2. Aigbavboa, C., Ohiomah, I., & Zwane, T. (2017). Sustainable Construction Practices: ―a Lazy View‖ of Construction Professionals in the South Africa Construction Industry. Energy Procedia,

105, 3003–3010.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.743 3. BCA. (2017). BCA - Buildability 2017.

https://www.bca.gov.sg/buildabledesign/othe

4. BMTPC Handbook. (2020). 5. CIDB. (2018). Manual for Ibs Content. 6. Colebatch, H. K. (2018). The idea of policy design: Intention, process, outcome, meaning and validity. Public Policy and Administration, 33(4), 365– 383. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952076717709525 7. DBS Group Research. (2017). Malaysian Construction Sector. January 2009, 16. 8. Din, M. I., Bahri, N., Dzulkifly, M. A., Norman, M. R., Kamar, K. A. M., & Abd Hamid, Z. (2012). The adoption of industrialised building system (IBS) construction in Malaysia: The history, policies, experiences and lesson learned. 2012 Proceedings of the 29th International Symposium of Automation and Robotics in Construction, ISARC 2012, 1. https://doi.org/10.22260/isarc2012/0034 9. Elkaftangui, M., & Basem, M. (2018). Optimizing prefabricated construction techniques in UAE as a solution to shortage of middle-income housing. MATEC Web of Conferences, 221. https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201822101006 10. Gao, S., Low, S. P., & Nair, K. (2018). Design for manufacturing and assembly (DfMA): a preliminary study of factors influencing its adoption in Singapore. Architectural Engineering and Design Management, 14(6), 440–456. https://doi.org/10.1080/17452007.2018.1502653 11. Gao, Y., & Tian, X. L. (2020). Prefabrication policies and the performance of construction industry in China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120042 12. Hamzeh, F., Ghani, O. A., Bacha, M. B. S., & Abbas, Y. (2017). Modular concrete construction the differing perspectives of designers, manufacturers, and contractors in Lebanon. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 24(6), 935–949. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-11-2014-0148 13. Ismail, F., Yusuwan, N. M., & Baharuddin, H. E. A. (2012). Management Factors for Successful IBS Projects Implementation. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 68, 99–107. (2021). A systematic overview of prefabricated construction policies in China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 280, 124371. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124371 15. Nanyam, V. P. S. N., Basu, R., Sawhney, A., Vikram, H., & Lodha, G. (2017). Implementation of Precast Technology in India-Opportunities and Challenges. Procedia Engineering, 196(June), 144–151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2017.07.184

16. NBC 2016. (2016).

17. O‘Neill, D., & Organ, S. (2016). A literature review of the evolution of British prefabricated low-rise housing. In Structural Survey (Vol. 34, Issue 2, pp. 191–214). Emerald Group Publishing Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1108/SS-08-2015-0037 18. Pan, M., Linner, T., Pan, W., Cheng, H., & Bock, T. (2018). A framework of indicators for assessing construction automation and robotics in the sustainability context. Journal of Cleaner Production, 182, 82–95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.053 19. Park, M., Ingawale-Verma, Y., Kim, W., & Ham, Y. (2011). Construction policymaking: With an example of singaporean government‘s policy to 20. diffuse prefabrication to private sector. KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, 15(5), 771–779. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-011-1243-4 20. Powell, J. (2016). Heights. Chicago Review, 34(2), 4. https://doi.org/10.2307/25305241 21. Rahman PEng, M., Habibur Rahman Sobuz, M., Rahman, M., & Rahman Sobuz, H. (2018). COMPARATIVE STUDY OF IPS & PPVC PRECAST SYSTEM- A CASE STUDY OF PUBLIC HOUSING BUILDINGS PROJECT IN SINGAPORE Construction Management View project Construction Safety View project COMPARATIVE STUDY OF IPS & PPVC PRECAST SYSTEM-A CASE STUDY OF PUBLIC HOUSIN.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/32

5397934

22. Release, M. (2016). MEDIA RELEASE BCA IDENTIFIES 35 KEY TECHNOLOGIES FOR R & D TO DRIVE. 1–6. 23. Ross, K. (2002). Non-traditional housing in the UK – A brief review. Building Research Establishment, 5–13.

http://www.cml.org.uk/documents/non- report/pdf_pub_misc_NontradhousingBR.pdf.

pdf 24. Shen, K., Cheng, C., Li, X., & Zhang, Z. (2019). Environmental cost-benefit analysis of prefabricated public housing in Beijing. Sustainability (Switzerland), 11(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/su11010207 25. Wu, G., Yang, R., Li, L., Bi, X., Liu, B., Li, S., & Zhou, S. (2019). Factors influencing the application of prefabricated construction in China: From perspectives of technology promotion and cleaner production. Journal of Cleaner Production, 219, 753–762. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.02.110 26. Wu, Z., Luo, L., Li, H., Wang, Y., Bi, G., & Antwi-Afari, M. F. (2021). An analysis on promoting prefabrication implementation in construction industry towards sustainability. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(21). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182111493 27. Xu, Z., Zayed, T., & Niu, Y. (2020). Comparative analysis of modular construction practices in mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore. Journal of Cleaner Production, 245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118861 28. Yunus, R., & Yang, J. (2011). Sustainability criteria for Industrialised Building Systems (IBS) in Malaysia. Procedia Engineering, 14, 1590–1598. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2011.07.200 29. Zhou, J., Qin, Y., & Fang, S. (2019). Impacts of consumers and real estate enterprises on the implementation of prefabrication in residential buildings: The moderating role of incentive policies. Sustainability (Switzerland), 11(18). https://doi.org/10.3390/su11184827

Associate Professor, Amity School of Architecture and Planning, Noida, India