Anjan Dutta Roy, Vice President, Tiger Steel Engineering (I) Pvt. Ltd.  shares how the PEB industry in India can surpass China’s growth rate
The pace at the PEB technology is making progress in residential and commercial sectors other than industrial and warehouse segment across rural and urban areas. India is well set to become a major player in building sector, converting RCC to steel.
PEB industry: present and futureTiger Steel is growing very fast in PEB sector with an appreciable growth which is ahead of many other countries.
The benefits demonstrated by PEB industry have attracted many users who used to think RCC and conventional steel building as the only source.
However, PEB industry is also catering to heavy industries like steel, infrastructure, power etc. The benefits of faster ROI by using PEB in housing and commercial segment are rapidly changing the mind of the people. Thus widening the growth of PEB, and it is set to be continued further.
The PEB market is growing at a very appreciable rate every year, except current year which had the effect of recession and political unrests, putting many investment plans on hold. Last year, the industry has experienced a negative or almost a flat growth which may even continue this year too. However, this year shows clear indications to take a kick-start with a reasonable healthy growth and expected further improvement year by year.
With this kind of growth, it is expected a further rise in competition. The additional new entrants in this field with their marketing activities will certainly bring more awareness, and this momentum will definitely have a direct impact for the growth of PEB potential.
The growth continuesIf PEB industry continues to grow at the current growth rate in India, very soon we will be among the top 10 countries in using steel as main building materials in the world. India, the fastest growing market in the PEB construction segment, is ahead of China. The size of PEB in India is about 33 per cent of the Indian construction industry. Hence, there is huge scope for PEB players to enhance further by reducing the scope from conventional construction, currently rated as 67 per cent.
As per the industry experts, potential growth with current capacity is 10 per cent year-on-year basis. Hence, there would be good scope for all the PEB players to go for a capacity expansion for the current market players in the Indian PEB Industry.The PEB market is strongly associated with investments and growth in the industrial and commercial sectors. The new potential application areas for PEB in the next few years will include power plant structures, factory buildings, commercial buildings (offices, multiplex and retail malls), educational institutes, hospitals, schools, auditoriums, residential buildings, warehouses, and metro stations etc. Thus there is a huge opportunity for PEB players in the sectors.
The Government of India has set a massive target for developing infrastructure in the 12th FYP at an estimated cost of Rs. 40,900,000 million of which nearly 33-34 per cent have been allocated for the power sector.
The commercial building sector in India is estimated to reach a target of 20.44 billion square feet by 2030 from 7 billion square feet in 2010. It is expected that nearly 34 per cent of 2030 target had already been constructed and about 66 per cent of the building stock is yet to be constructed.
The PEB market in India is experiencing sizable growth fuelled by infrastructure development vis-à-vis increasing popularity of PEB in the industrial sector e.g. automotive, power, logistics, pharma, FMCG etc. With manufacturing activity increasing in the last few years, logistics has gained equal importance in order to provide better goods at lesser cost. It is also observed that India has around 7,500 cold storage facilities with a capacity of 35.0 million tonnes. The additional capacity to the cold store and warehousing would also trigger the PEB market in India.
In India, PEB is mostly used in industrial segment for factories, warehouses etc. and yet to venture into other areas. If we compare with the developed markets, PEB has already made penetration not only in the industrial segment but also in low-rise structures (G+5) — a huge growth potential for PEB industry is expected in near future.
PEB in metro rail projectsThe onset speed of metro rail project in next 10 years is very ambitious for PEB players due to the proven track record. Already, Rs. 80,000 crore had either been invested or committed to ongoing metro rail projects. An overall investment of Rs. 200,000 crore is also estimated to be made in the country in the next 10 years. Besides ongoing projects in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai, further projects are also going to be launched in cities like Pune, Lucknow, Kanpur, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, Kochi, Indore and Chandigarh.
Hyderabad metro project wants to go on BOT model involving the private sector. Work is on in Chennai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Kochi or Bhopal to set up metro networks over the next 5 years. Metro project in Kochi is awaiting centre’s clearance. The state government has cleared it and handed it over to DMRC on a turnkey basis. 
Tiger Steel: the initiatorAvailability of PEB producers is higher than the demand. This brings huge competition, resulting cut-throat price war — an additional gain for the PEB users. Due to low price, some players are cutting the corners, spoiling the product quality. But as it grows, all the PEB players are also having adequate plans to expand further as per the organisational mission and vision.Some players believes in becoming the biggest player which is different in the case of Tiger Steel as it would like to maintain its supremacy by providing best technical solutions of PEB. In 1996, it started propagating PEB concept in India followed by the first PEB plant in India in 1998.
Like leaders are to be followed, over the past few years, many players have also entered the PEB market. Tiger Steel always welcomes them as it is getting further propagated the concept initialised by it. The more is the player, the more is the visibility, greater demand and installations. It satisfies Tiger Steel immensely being the initiator. Concept of PEB is not having a beam building line and rolling lines.
Innovations in PEBToday the industry is configuring the building intelligently, keeping the operational parameters untouched. Companies are upgrading the roofing profile with unique features, changing the built up section concept to reduce the weights. Thus, they save huge cost, using specialised design and engineering-based software for economised composite floor decking systems and consolidation of renowned steel design software to make PEB user friendly.
Tiger Steel expertiseTiger Steel has two manufacturing plants: one in Mumbai and other one in Uttarakhand. The company is equipped with a fully integrated facility of most modern machineries to produce the best quality product. To provide an ultimate solution to the valued customers, it has also started offering turnkey EPC solutions which has also a requirement of PEB.