Manish Garg, CEO, Interarch Building Products Pvt. Ltd., in an interview with B2B Purchase.

How do you evaluate the growth trends of PEB business this year, amid pandemic? 

The market for PEB’s and steel construction solutions is growing after taking a pause during the Covid second wave, and is at the pre-pandemic level. There is a lot of pent-up demand which is now coming up for execution. Around the world, business is returning to normalcy as the various countries including India have achieved a reasonable number of vaccination and have devised ways to fight and live with the pandemic. 

How do you rate the energy efficiency and cost-effective aspects in a PEB, against a normal conventional building? 

PEB’s are highly energy-efficient due to the low thermal mass roofing it uses. These buildings also use insulation to prevent the ingress of radiated heat into the building. The roofing is most often used in a reflective and/or white painted surface with a very high Solar Reflective Index (SRI) to ascertain the low ingress of radiated heat. The buildings are cost-effective due to the efficient use of steel. The steel further has an optimum and appropriate utilisation. The PEB’s are lighter yet stronger than conventional buildings. The time that it takes to construct these buildings is almost half when compared to conventional buildings. Therefore on a cost-benefit analysis basis, the PEB’s are actually far more cost-effective. 

How are the PEB providers and consumers responding to advanced technologies for efficient PEB? 

Customers deserve and prefer the best quality and service at the lowest price. PEB Providers like INTERARCH, are continuously innovating and deploying new technologies to deliver a world-class experience to its customers across its targeted markets. The engineering uses advanced design and detailing software such as MBS and Tekla. The project planning uses Primavera and MSP tools. The SAP platform integrates all these into 1 superlative ERP tool to drive operational excellence. Consumers are adaptive to new and improved ways of working and are reaping the benefits of these. 

What is the available alternative material for steel that’s widely accepted by the industry? 

There is no real alternate to steel. In fact, steel is an alternate to many conventional building materials. Conventionally, industry has used concrete as the alternate to steel till now. The RCC framed structures are rapidly converting to steel framed structures given their utility and advantages of  time and cost. The environmental norms and requirements of a pollution-free environment have also pushed the demand for steel buildings. Steel construction hardly uses any water, cement, wood, and aggregates at the site, so the site is clean and good for maintaining a pollution-free environment. 

What kind of projects are you working on currently? And what kind of undertaking are you planning in the coming years? 

We are currently working on projects across various segments like, E-Commerce fulfillment centers for Amazon and Flipkart for an area that runs into millions of sq. ft., organised warehousing for IndoSpace, ESR, LOGO’s at numerous sites across the country. We are also working for renewable energy solar module producing factories for First Solar and Renew Energy for megaprojects running into millions of sq ft; Data centres for Web Werks, with heavy floor loads and multiple floors. 

In the future, we plan to change the way India constructs its commercial, institutional and infrastructural buildings using steel-framed buildings. Interarch Life is our initiative to transform these buildings from RCC framed buildings to steel framed buildings.