“A building will have a much longer life lifetime as long as the construction quality is good,” says Shridhara C N, Associate Director, Preca Solutions India Pvt. Ltd.

How are the present market trends impacting the demand for pre-cast technology in infra projects? 

At present, the precast sector is booming. Because of the Covid construction, the lookout has totally changed. There are many projects being delayed. Now they have to complete the projects in the available short time. This condition favours the precast sector in grabbing the projects.

How can precast help in creating affordable homes? 

Precast technology can help to deliver houses for the needy in a short period of time. Also, the quality of construction. Because all affordable houses are planned for the lower and middle sectors at short durations, precast construction helps to deliver these houses in a short time with high quality construction. The houses constructed using precast technology require less maintenance.

What can be said about the robustness and life span of buildings designed using precast? 

The precast elements are produced in a controlled environment under stringent quality procedures. The minimum grade of concrete used in precast is M40. All the precast elements will be produced in steel moulds with shutter vibrators. No plastering is required on precast elements. As long as the quality of construction is good, the life span of buildings will increase enormously. As a study shows, precast buildings will start losing their lives after 100 years of construction.

What are the ideal factory conditions to ensure safe operations in building construction? 

The ideal area for a full-fledged factory should be a minimum of 10 to 15 acres. The factory should have concrete batching plants, enough moulds as per the project demand, a large enough stock yard to store the cast elements, and should have suitable capacity cranes.

The factory needs enough teams of manpower for production, demoulding, finishing, loading and unloading processes. 

Also, good precast knowledge quality teams should be required to maintain stringent quality procedures. There are also a bunch of safety teams required to handle safety issues and procedures.

How are the pricing and technology trends enabling you to offer affordable and efficient solutions? 

The pricing part in India is very crucial, as India is a cost-oriented market. However, because of the higher grade of concrete, highly paid manpower costs, and machine usage costs, precast will not be less expensive (when compared to material costs). However, if the overall cost of the project includes the time benefit, precast will undoubtedly be cost effective for dense projects.

What are your services and offerings to them? 

We have some pharmaceutical projects, school buildings, hospital buildings, and some industrial buildings. Also, we found economical solutions to execute non-tower areas (parking floor basements) using precast technology in dense residential towers. 

We are offering precast retaining walls, precast columns, and precast beams. Precast Staircases, Precast Lift Core Walls, Stair Case Core Walls, and external precast walls.

As per tender requirements, we do take some buildings projects right from foundation to completion.