Larsen & Toubro has announced the achievement of ‘Mission 96’ – a plan to build a 12-storey residential tower for their client, CIDCO (City and Industrial Development Corporation), with 96 flats in just 96 days using the company’s precast large concrete panel system for ultra-rapid construction of public housing. The tower is a part of about 23,432 EWS and LIG houses being constructed by CIDCO under Package IV of the PMAY in Navi Mumbai at Bamandongri, Kharkopar and Taloja. The ‘Mission 96’ involved the production and installation of 1,985 precast elements of the superstructure along with architectural finishes and MEP works over a built-up area of 64,000 sq ft. Speaking about the completed tower, Ashwin Mudgal IAS, Joint Managing Director, CIDCO, has said, “Great to see the record-making process by L&T, which will pave the way for use of such technologies and excellent shop floor management in the future.” Hafeez Contractor, Architect and a Padma Bhushan awardee, has said, “L&T, that pioneered aluminium formwork construction in the country and changed the face of the residential sector, has been instrumental in driving precast technology to further achieve material sustainability and speedy construction,” adding that prefabricated pre-finished volumetric construction would help meet the growing housing demand. “At Buildings & Factories, we have always sought ways and means to speed up the pace of construction and this project is another successful effort to reduce construction cycle time dramatically,” remarked MV Satish, Whole Time Director and Senior Executive Vice President (Buildings), L&T. Speaking about the formation of the special B&F Fast unit, focussing on evolving methods and deploying technology to build to speed and scale, that had recently completed a 7-storey, state-of-the-art flight control system integration centre for DRDO in just 45 days, he adds, “Apart from construction technology, digital technology also helped us achieve this rapid pace of construction. We adopted the concrete maturity method to monitor the development of concrete strength in real-time with digital meters for a seamless construction and monitored progress using the Digital Twin approach with a BIM model developed for the project.”