Something has changed radically in the Indian construction industry. India used to look up to Western countries, especially Scandinavian countries and Austria, for their construction technology prowess. But, today, our technology implementation has attracted the attention of the world, especially our high-altitude tunnels, according to Lt Gen (Retd) Rajeev Chaudhry, Former Director General, Border Roads Organisation, and Chairman, RAHSTA EXPO Committee.That’s because India is now home to the world’s highest rail bridge, the Chenab bridge, the longest single tube highway tunnel above 10,000 ft, the Atal tunnel, and the highest multi span bridge in the world, the Brangza bridge on Shyok river. As we write this, the world’s highest tunnel, the Shinkula tunnel, is under construction as is the world’s highest motorable road, the Likaru-Migla-Fukche road, at 19,400 ft.All these achievements have demanded detailed planning, strong, well-supported teams, technological prowess and leaders who are willing to disrupt convention, avers Chaudhry.Technology: a gamechangerTechnology has also proven to be the game-changer in completing the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, a project that faced significant environmental and locational constraints.“We overcame key challenges and completed the work in half the time it would typically have taken, by reducing the number of materials needed to be transported to site and fabricating as much as possible offsite so the execution would continue even while the foundation work was underway,” shares Sanjay D Patil, Vice President and Head, Bridges Business Unit, L&T Construction, who led Package 1 of the project.Prefabrication helps improves quality, reduces defects and makes it possible to work with less labour. Also, as Chaudhry notes, “it is a great solution when you don’t have the luxury of enough good weather days to transport the raw material to your site and construct.” Even after eliminating whatever was not essential, almost 7,000 pieces for the harbour link were made in a workshop, tracked using RFID, assembled also with the aid of technology and erected onsite.“Computers controlled the positioning to the last millimetre to achieve the targeted accuracy,” narrates Patil. “Further, every equipment used on site was tracked and monitored from a central control to ensure performance and productivity. About 5,000 tonne of temporary reusable structural work was also digitally tracked.”L&T Construction has a decade’s head start in deploying tracking and monitoring technology at the workplace.  Automation at L&T started when the chairman at the time, inspired by what he had seen during an overseas visit, inspired his team to digitise 35,000 pieces of machinery. “So much do we rely on connectedness that, today, if a machine is seen to be disconnected, it is considered to have broken down,” describes SP Rajan, Vice President and Head Competency Centre, L&T Construction.Connecting machines generated a lot of data, which was crunched and analysed to yield useful information. Soon, this was followed by digitisation in the procurements department, contracts department, tendering department, and so on. In time, the technologies deployed expanded from Internet of Things (IoT) to geospatial, Beam, AR (augmented reality), VR (virtual reality), ML (machine learning) and, finally, AI (artificial intelligence).Paperless constructionToday, the palette of digital technologies available to build better spans preconstruction processes, construction and post-construction. The ultimate goal is, of course, paperless processes from the design to delivery of a construction project. Is this actually possible in India?“AutoCAD is the industry standard for planning; everybody is using it,” says Thomas Jacob, Director, MicroGenesis. “AutoCAD also continues to be used for design along with software like Plant 3D, Revit, which is the gold standard for BIM [building information modelling] in the industry, Civil 3D for the infrastructure industry, and MicroStation for GIS [geographic information system] and other applications.”In the planning and design stage, paper is no longer a necessity, he notes. Analysis and coordination, the next steps in construction, can make use of solutions like Collaborate Pro, Navisworks, Solibri, STAAD, SYNCHRO and Autodesk Forma to analyse the project from the perspectives of strength, earthquake and various others, such as sustainability, so that even before a commitment to build, the proposed building is deemed safe from every angle, continues Jacob.Ideally, a design solution should enable all the available detailing data to be inbuilt into one single digital design model, which should also be connected with all the stakeholders so that they can actually talk to each other, advises Sunil Lidkar, Territory Business Head, Trimble Solutions India. “What’s important is that errors are resolved before construction starts.”This digital model is then taken to the fabricate stage, where it should generate different outputs such as rebar detailing, bar bending schedule, fabrication drawings, he addsThe best scenario is when data is directly exported to the machine to eliminate errors; what is called ‘design for manufacturability’. The design model helps optimise the material consumed, the process and tolerance management; and the production would be definitely faster and of a higher quality. Incidentally, the Chenab Bridge and Mumbai Trans Harbour Link made use of Tekla to build a digital model. For the build stage, Autodesk offers Docs, Build, Takeoff, Assemble and the Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC), which provides a common data environment. BIM models can be imported into the ACC platform to become the central repository of all the data related to a construction project. Autodesk has Tandem to create digital twins, which Jacob says many companies are already using effectively.“Today, you can actually put your BIM model on a map of the segment of your city where you are constructing to see how it looks, where are the parks, where are the utilities,” he adds. “All these things are possible today because there is a merger of BIM and GIS using S3 and Autodesk technologies.” Beyond Autodesk, Candy, a tailormade complete project control system for the construction industry, links estimation, planning, forecasting, cash flow, valuations, subcontract management and end-value management into one continuous interactive workflow. It’s efficient, scalable and field proven by major players in India across complex metro-rail, bullet train, highway, high-rise and energy sector projects. CostX supports 2D and 3D take-off, so estimators can take off directly from drawings or beam models, track revisions and link everything to live estimates to reduce rates, speed up work and future-proof your business. And CX enables document control, team communication, version tracking and quality control till the handover.Connecting field teamsDigital transformation is not just about going paperless. It’s also about making projects more resilient and responsive, giving every stakeholder from estimator to project manager the data and tools to see clearly and act quickly.That’s where InnCircle can help. An integrated construction management platform that connects with any existing ERP system and 3D modelling system, it collects micro-level data that can help closely monitor project performance at every level. It also keeps project managers seamlessly connected to field teams equipped with mobile applications and mobile interfaces to capture real-time data.Xpedeon, an integrated platform, an end-to-end Cloud-based system tailored for construction, also enables real-time site tracking besides local compliance (TDS, GST), and much more through 20-plus integrated modules. Sobha Realty and Navayuga are using this solution that was designed to change “manual reporting” and the fact that “everybody still works in silos on construction projects”, to quote Gokul Shirur, Director, Sales and Marketing, South Asia, Xpedeon, an ISO-certified, GDPR-compliant player. While the solution is built for scale, he says “You can start small, say with 25 users, and scale up to whatever level you want to the whole end-to-end ERP. We are a long-term partner, we work with our customers, we have our own implementation team, and we ensure that they succeed, so we succeed.”Pocket Construction Manager by Aasaan Tech is another tool to manage a construction project from end to end without manual data collection. It enables quick value-driven outputs.Yet another nifty solution to see what’s actually happening onsite is a simple plug-and-play tool, a 360° camera from SitePace.ai.Site visibility helps eliminate misreporting. “Work not done but reported as done, work not done as per the design, wastage of resources; these are all issues that could be solved with greater visibility of a site,” explains Yash Shah, Founder and CEO, SitePace.ai, who describes the tool as “a visual layer to strengthen the existing technologies used in construction”.Notably, alternatives to SitePace such as drones are handy for outdoor work but they don’t work indoors and need a license to operate. CCTV has limited coverage and is impractical to install in every corner of an under-construction building. LiDAR does a good job but it is expensive and depends on a third party to capture the data, which is not held privately. 2D photos have limited coverage and are often not shared and stored in an easily recoverable manner.Sitepace is available as software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription. An algorithm creates the digital twin, the 360° scenario of the site, and voila! Managers can take virtual tours and keep tabs on sites. Collaboration and interaction easily happen through a sticky note feature. If needed, access to the site can be restricted to sections. The computer vision can even detect quality and safety issues. “You can talk to the site and ask for insights,” says Shah. Smart sellingDigital transformation in the real-estate sector spans customers as well as employees. At Tata Reality and Infrastructure, the need to “bring all this data onto a common data environment, which could be visualised and used to take decisions” drove the implementation of information technology, according to Girish Hardkar, Chief Information and Digital Officer, Tata Reality and Infrastructure. “Without using technology to organise data, processes used to take too long. That was five years ago. A Cloud-first approach was preferred, focusing on SaaS because it offers flexibility and speed.” “The entire customer digital lifecycle management happens on the Salesforce stack,” continues Hardkar. “We have the sales Cloud, service Cloud, marketing Cloud, data Cloud; we have personas, personalised journeys, Omni Channel on the sales side. For the employee, the entire hierarchy to retire happens on the Oracle Cloud. Our analytics runs on the Azure Cloud. We’re using Microsoft Fabric. For construction design to delivery, we are on the Autodesk Construction Cloud. For procurement, we have the EffiGo Cloud. Tendering, bidding are integrated with SAP; there’s a vendor portal. It’s completely automated.”3D printingConstruction technologies include machines to build faster or better as well as more sustainable products and even knowhow that improves construction outcomes. For instance, tunnel-boring machines (TBMs) have been a real gamechanger in India with more than 210 tunnels spanning a length of over 460 km in various stages of development – and many more in the pipeline.3D printing can generate structural as well as non-structural forms. Tvasta, a 3D printing company, counts a one-bedroom studio apartment on the IIT Madras campus in its portfolio. This was erected in about 14 days and delivered within a month. A one-bedroom guest house for the Indian Air Force in Gandhinagar, a compound wall for the Chennai Cricket Stadium, arch-shaped security cabins for Godrej Construction’s Kalapur facility (erected and delivered in less than two days), a coral reef sunk to become part of the natural reef formation, bus shelters for Godrej Construction’s Vikroli campus, and villas for Godrej Properties in Pune are some other projects. Chaudhry points out that China and the US are using 3D printed buildings in disaster-prone areas or to quickly deploy large numbers of people. Data centres, acoustic barriers for bullet-train projects and crash barriers for highways are some other possible uses of 3D printing, according to Kalyan Vaidyanathan, CTO, Tvasta Manufacturing Solutions. He sees 3D printing appealing to people who want to customise not just the interiors but also the exteriors of high-end villas. “The façade treatment can be your own unique style,” he says, sharing the example of a villa with a double-height living room with a square layout on the ground floor, which organically transitions to a circle at the top, something you just can’t do with conventional construction. Tvasta is currently using mixes with about 30 per cent less cement than conventional; because the walls are cavity walls, they offer much better thermal comfort. Facilitating equipment rentalsAUEQI is a platform dedicated to improve access to construction equipment by digitising, easing and simplifying management and rentals. “We built AUEQI to solve typical constraints faced by construction companies needing to rent equipment,” says Janardhan Reddy N, Founder & CEO, AUEQI Technologies, listing the key challenges as doubtful equipment availability, lack of transparency in pricing, hassles in dealing with middlemen and brokers, inefficiencies in the rental process, limited data for decision-making, maintenance and operational challenges, and the lack of financial flexibility, especially for small and medium-sized companies. AUEQI puts the industry’s overall utilisation of the available construction equipment at only about 40 per cent. If this could be increased by 10 to 15 per cent, the return to the country would be substantial. “With our platform, we provide equipment owners an option to maximise revenue and optimise utilisation, and renters payment security and comprehensive support,” he says. “We also take subcontracts and offer value-added services such as equipment planning and utilisation. We’re targeting 5,000 equipment listings; we have 200-plus vendor partners so far with 500-plus verified machines. “Embodied technology Products that can increase the green quotient of the built environment and increase structural longevity are much needed to cut India’s losses from pollution and wear and tear. Consider the fact that India loses more than 3 per cent of the country’s GDP (Rs 8.5 lakh crore) to steel corrosion annually, about the same amount that the Government invests in infrastructure. Seven building collapse incidents are logged every day, not just on the coast as most would imagine but also in heavily polluted areas. Research shows that high PM2 .5 levels accelerate corrosion. Global warming will exacerbate this because after relative humidity touches more than 70 per cent, the rate of corrosion doubles. India’s steel industry contributes 12 per cent of the country’s emissions, with a per tonne carbon dioxide emission higher than the global average. Steel rebars used in construction account for 40 per cent of the emissions of concrete. In this scenario, an alternative rebar (and also profiles, angles, channels and pipes) made of fiberglass comes across as a welcome green alternative to steel rebars.Brands like Starbucks, Britannia and others have used fibreglass from ShineStar Fiberglass Composite as flooring reinforcement. Over 250 projects spanning 1 crore sq ft in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad and Coimbatore have used these fiberglass rebars and other products, which are covered by Indian certifications and standards and international building codes for concrete reinforcement.A warehouse that opted for a 6-mm fibreglass bar instead of an 8-mm TMT bar cut about one-third of the cost besides building greener, according to Sourabh Banthia, Managing Director, ShineStar Fiberglass Composite. Being lightweight and easy to use, the product is labour-friendly. And above all, throughout the lifecycle, because it is long-lasting, replacement and maintenance were non-issues. In the road construction industry, organosilanes can prevent potholes from developing in pavements by ensuring that the bitumen is bonded to the aggregate and the soil base does not disintegrate. Essentially, potholes develop when water ingress causes cracks, through which more water percolates; some converts to vapour and causes the bitumen to delaminate with the aggregate, explains Himanshu Agarwal, Chief Operating Officer, Zydex Industries. Organosilanes can prevent this by giving the aggregate a hydrophobic water-repelling layer. India needs to build longer-lasting, higher quality roads, which don’t become death traps. In resurfacing as well, the milled and harvested material needs proper coating to bond well. Roads using organosilanes in areas seeing heavy rainfall, such as Tripura, have withstood four monsoons without developing potholes, and some roads have not been damaged even after being under water for 15 days.AI: The pinnacleAI is arguably the pinnacle of technology deployed for construction. It has many forms, which are still evolving. “AI has moved from parametric AI (where a solution is passed certain parameters to act on) to generative AI (where it is able to generate some ideas) to agentic AI (where it can accept and deliver tasks) and physical AI (robotics),” elaborates Sabyasachi Chatterjee, Senior Director, Technology and Transformation, JLL India.In the construction industry, AI will not help build, but it can increase efficiency, accuracy and productivity. “It’s in materials, process, monitoring, construction and postconstruction,” avers Abhay Garg, Head and Chief Mentor, Brigade REAP, an acceleration programme. Essentially, AI can and is already showing new paradigms.AI investments in engineering and design can reduce the engineering cycle from 18 months to six months, according to Satyajit Dev Roy, Partner, KPMG. At present, Chatterjee says the focus is on agentic AI and physical AI. At Tata Reality and Infrastructure, having used natural language processing bots, the focus has now turned to the AI assistant or agentic AI.Raaya, from Aasaan Tech, is an AI assistant, “like an Alexa for your construction site”, shares Hemil Parekh, Director and Chief Executive Officer, Aasaan TechCompanies are harnessing the power of AI to enable decisions that improve construction project outcomes. For instance, the Groundwater Company addresses the fact that how we construct has drastically changed in the past 60 years but how we manage groundwater hasn’t. It uses AI, machine learning, big data and geospatial analysis to provide a complete analysis into the subsurface well before excavations begin, “even when developers may still be evaluating land parcels – to tell you how you can solve seepage and improve your water sources and groundwater availability,” explains Jagdish Balaram, Head India and Global Business, The Ground Water Company. “In many of our projects, the availability of groundwater improved by 800 per cent.”Groundwater insights are invaluable to avoid seepage in basement levels and oozing water causing damage and even ruptured slabs. Groundwater insights are also invaluable to manage water scarcity and a falling water table that yields no water for those living on the land, and even unexpected encounters of rock that set projects back by months and add to the cost. “Geophysical technology or geophysical study are very plot-centric and don’t take the larger underground picture into consideration,” says Balaram. “Consequently, any subsoil treatment doesn’t address the root issues so it is likely to exaggerate seepage problems.”Parekh, a big believer in simple, mobile-first construction management solutions that hyper-integrate data that would otherwise be held in silos, says the idea behind his solutions is “to make ‘aasaan’ the entire construction.” Isn’t that what we’re all looking for?Make an impactImpact is a powerful business intelligence tool from ASAPP Info Global, which tracks over 25,000 pan-India real-estate and infrastructure projects across all stages, from when the project is launched to when the budget is approved, and through environment clearance to tendering. Tracking continues through the construction phase. Impact serves contractors and suppliers, helping them “make well-informed decisions on taking on a project”, says Tanveer Padode, CEO, Impacct. When projects move into a Detailed Project Report (DPR) phase, approximate requirements for steel, cement and equipment help vendors draw up business development plans.Identifying the GapsWhat are the laggards in adopting construction tech? And what technologies are adoption leaders missing? Let us delve deeper.Ample construction technology and partners are available today. The jury is in on that. Yet, “construction tech is not so buzzy,” to quote Chaitanya Bharech, Co-Founder, C-Tribe Society, &; CEO, Cognito Consulting. The big question is: Why?Pushing penetrationBy and large, the top tier in the infrastructure and real-estate segments is very good at digital adoption. Coming to subcontractors and firms working under them, many are still on WhatsApp and Excel sheets. Some subcontractors are improvising because they realise that they cannot compete without technology. But to push penetration, they must see the benefit in adopting technology – for them as well as the community they are a part of. One of the leading benefits is the close monitoring of projects that not only have tighter deadlines but are also more complex, of an unprecedented scale and that are being implemented in an increasingly dynamic, risky environment. Technology creates a collaborative environment and can integrate data that would otherwise be held in silos, making it easier to execute decisions.Without tight monitoring, projects get delayed and incur cost-overruns. Project delays have been seen to cause nearly 20 per cent of the original cost to be overrun. With over Rs 27 trillion of ongoing infrastructure projects worth more than Rs 150 crore each experiencing cost overruns, at a macro level, Pratap Padode, Founder, ASAPP Info Global Services & FIRST Construction Council, notes that the use of technology is amply justified.“The typical lifecycle for any billion-dollar project in India today is less than three years, down from four to six years decades ago, which means the industry needs different ways of executing projects,” says Satyajit Deb Roy, Partner, KPMG.Fragmented data availed through primitive methods, recorded via registers, ERP and some project management solutions, and reported via physical transfers, phone calls, WhatsApp messages and emails, keeps managers from working efficiently, explains Hamil Parekh, Director and Chief Executive Officer, Aasaan Tech. So much so that he says construction leaders who should be spending 30 per cent of their time on handling services and 70 per cent on sales and scaling, end up spending 65 per cent of their time on handling services. Decision-making delays directly impact 8-12 per cent of the time and cost overruns, besides creating stress and discontent at the workplace.“Almost one-third of projects get delayed or exceed their budget because where we should use technology, we use manual labour,” says Roy, who sees scope for the backward integration of technology.Lalu Varghese, Director & CEO, RIB Candy Distributor: LALS Software Services, says, “Insufficient digitalisation is synonymous with a loss of productivity, missed opportunities and created inefficiencies”, while estimating that “the cost of sticking with manual systems is far higher than adapting to the right tech.”The bottom line: Users must realise the value that technology can bring. Systems must be designed to be so effective that adopters don’t switch back to Excel after a trial.People &processWithin organisations, digital transformation must be driven from the very top. It has to be part of the organisation culture. Senior management need to be very vocal about transparency, else conversations about real-time data access will fall through. Supervisory cadres will continue, for instance, to maintain two kinds of schedules; one for the management and one that is realistic. “We plan a lot but many people back out of implementation either because there is a lack of intent or messaging or sponsorship from the top,” says Roy. Within some organisations where technology is being deployed, it isn’t helping every employee who could work better. For instance, Harsh Pareek, Senior Director, Regional Sales, Trimble, points out that the deployment of BIM stops at the design level, at design optimisation and design coordination, which is preplanning, whereas BIM could deliver value on the field. Making information available to workers onsite would help improve performances.The need of the hour is to push the boundaries to connect blue-collar workers with white collar workers because construction sites of the future will be connected. “When you connect your digital with the machine to create the physical form, that’s where construction will become completely mechanised, just like manufacturing,” he explains. “Our vision is all towards bringing digital to physical and physical to digital. Only then will fantastic designs be implemented on the ground.”When it comes to AI, because employees fear the technology, you need to figure out how to take everyone along, cautions Sabyasachi Chatterjee, Senior Director, Technology and Transformation JLL India. “People must be part of your AI ambition, your AI vision, your AI opportunity matrix. Your team will work together to get this delivered.”Insufficient skills are another barrier to deploying technology or accelerating productivity by using the complete capacity of machines. “Training programmes need to create a future workforce that is ready for the next phase of capital-intensive infrastructure,” observes Roy.Process remains a challenge as much as people, especially the lack of standardisation. “For AI to run, you need structured data, and that can only happen with standardisation,” says Roshan Bucha, Technical Sales Manager, Construction, Autodesk.For instance, BIM models could be used to create a digital twin of railways infrastructure, to ease maintenance. Sensors could be installed along the railway track to identify signs of wear or damage. But the lack of standardisation in railways infrastructure makes it difficult to implement a standardised approach to BIM.Choose wellConstruction technology isn’t some fancy gadget that will solve everything at the click of a button. Technology deployments must align with business strategy.The right tech isn’t easy to define. “No single solution can deliver in a process industry or is a panacea for all,” explains Abhay Garg, Head and Chief Mentor at Brigade REAP. “Different companies and solutions will have to come together.”It could start with something as simple as an Excel sheet. “If you have centralised Excel sheets, well-built macros, a central system, even WhatsApp-enabled systems, as long as you have a chain system where your data comes to the centre and it’s managed across the lifecycle of the project,” explains Bharech.“You need to choose the right use cases and be real about where you are in your journey of adaptation,” advises Roy. “You can’t expect digital to come from outside and do something for the business.”Prior to investing in technology, the RoI must be evaluated because no one wants to incur an upfront cost and then wait for things to happen. Any investment must lead to profit maximisation. Any technology must clearly demonstrate its ROI metric or its return on intelligence; essentially, what it will add to the company’s capabilities for, say, the next decade, believes Nikhil Gandhi, Senior Investment Specialist, Invest India.The right way to implement is to dive into each process, figure out what you can digitise to deliver more efficiently, faster, cheaper and smarter, advises Bharech. Or as Roy says, “Examine how to make processes more efficient. By automating and linking, processes must be gradually upgraded, and this will be followed by data analytics, generative AI, and so on. Integrated project management is the need of the hour.”In the instance of AI, the ambition must be drafted in keeping with the areas where there is genuine need for digital or AI intervention, explains Chatterjee. “You don’t just say, ‘Let’s do AI’.”Precast challengesPrecast is growing at nearly 10 per cent per annum driven by growing demand for faster and more efficient construction, particularly in infrastructure and housing projects. Still, deploying precast technology out of Mumbai is challenging, observes Dr Ravindra Gettu, VS Raju Chair Professor, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. A good example is an IIT Madras tender for a Rs 400-crore precast project that has twice seen a bid deadline extension because of a lack of response. He is of the opinion that prefabrication currently works only in large projects, say, a Rs 1,000-crore-plus project spanning over 4 million sq ft.In cities, space is a key challenge associated with prefabrication. “You need at least 10 acre for a factory,” continues Dr Gettu. Safety is another big problem. “Putting together Lego-like elements in a building that is 50-storey-plus high is still not looked at very carefully.”Standardisation is another concern. “Joints aren’t robust enough, they aren’t standardised,” he says. “Other components are also not standardised to the extent of having a catalogue of standardised precast products. Every company still has their own way of pre-casting. All of them have their own different designs. Smaller projects would benefit from a catalogue of products.” Sustainable prefabricated components are also the need of the hour. “We have to design with the best material possible,” says Dr Gettu. While prefabrication is still concrete-based, he sees potential for glass fibre-reinforced polymer to be used, especially considering its falling cost.Volumetric constructionL&T Construction’s Mission 96 project involved the construction of a 12-storey building for CIDCO in 36 days flat. The slab cycles were about three days where the industry standard is 15 to 17 days, and the precast standard is six to seven days. Amit Barde, Head – Precast Initiative, L&T Construction, calls this ultra-rapid construction. While it was an achievement, a demonstration of what’s possible, he says developers don’t want ultra-rapid construction – they want assured delivery. As for clients, they don’t want faster completed structures; they want faster completed buildings. This is why he sees plenty of scope for prefabricated prefinished volumetric construction (PPVC). “PPVC suits clients who say, ‘Accelerate your finishing’,” says Barde.Redevelopment projects are very keen to use 3D volumetric construction to avail time savings and minimise structural issues such as leaky joints, according to Sunil Desai, Managing Director, Dextra India. However, certain challenges are limiting the deployment of this technology.From a design perspective, Dr Gettu points out that the focus should be on separating the structural shell from the interiors. “Your building should last 100 years but do you need a room to last hundred years?” he prods. “Maybe in 20 years, your need will change. You don’t want to go in and break and redo everything. It would be so much easier to just collapse the inner elements and have free space that can be repurposed, perhaps even reuse the inner elements. That is sustainability.”Desai calls out the need for very high-capacity cranes, moulds, high volumes and a nearby plant as barriers. “Freight is the biggest challenge because the truck tonnage is never fully utilised so the dispatch efficiency is really low. Such investments are amortised on the number of deliverable units, which are still low.”Missing toolsA lot of solutions are available. But certain desirable tools are still missing. For instance, there is no tool to visualise the resources of different ministries, says Gandhi. Suppose a road was proposed to be built from A to B, you would want to see what infrastructure lies on the intended route, gas pipelines, forests, and so on.  He points out that the Gati Shakti Portal has been built for that very purpose – to visualise the resources of different ministries – but it has yet to be made accessible to the public. With no central digital repository of the road network in India, Dr Zafar Khan, Vice President, Highways Operators Association of India, points out that predictions and modelling still rely on traffic reports and reports from the Indian Highways Management Company Ltd.  Dr Khan, who is also Executive Director and Joint CEO, Highways Infrastructure Trust, which has 27 assets across India worth around Rs 25,000 crore, says logistics carriers intending to carry heavy loads on a certain route must visit the local highway office and ask for the capacity of the culvert.Organisations such as the Highways Infrastructure Trust develop a digital inventory using an AI-based tool for any road project they intend to buy, but an integrated inventory for the country is missing. Digitising the details of the road network and making the data accessible would help GST purposes, aid in understanding traffic seasons and material movements, and assist the making of revenue projections.Another missing tool for the road construction industry is a software-based model to help investors in road assets who propose to hold the asset till maturity – which for HAM projects is around 15 years – to focus on lifecycle cost improvements, says Dr Khan. “So far, the focus has been construction, which is just three years in the lifecycle of a road, as against 17 years of operations.”Ultimately, Dr Khan believes the focus will shift to operations and maintenance. He urges technology specialists to identify pressing real issues. Product developmentMore than half of India’s population is expected to be living in urban areas by 2035 for whom, according to Gandhi, about 100 million new homes will be needed. The need of the hour is to construct these homes faster, with the right technology and smarter and greener materials.The challenge: the potential users of those homes are still not driving the ecosystem in that direction. “Customers are inquiring about the location, the garden, bigger windows, bigger balconies, and so on,” says Sriram Kuchimanchi, Founder & CEO, Smarter Dharma. “No customer is asking for faster billing, more sustainable homes. So the ecosystem must evolve. When that happens, funding will automatically flow because of the sheer size and pending demand in the Indian construction market.”Essentially, when demand arises, the startup community will identify opportunities for more technologies and greener, affordable products. But how will demand grow?Views differ on whether industry or the Government should play a greater role in driving the adoption of technology. Some experts say the Government is spending $ 1.3 trillion on construction, money that will go to different contractors. So, it is the job of contractors to build that ecosystem, not the Government. That said, India has about 72,000 registered developers; they, too, need to push the use of technology. “But it’s challenging because technology is to be brought into a highly segmented and highly unstructured market,” says Kuchimanchi. Some experts say change tends to be driven by the public sector. In that context, they expect the Government to play a greater role. Bucha believes some mandates would help, such as mandating the submission of municipal drawings in BIM, the development of talent by promoting technologies in colleges and incentivising companies to take interns from colleges.In the lifecycle of any project, 20 per cent is the capital expenditure and 80 per cent is the operational expenditure. Thus, the Government must realise that if it has to maintain an asset for the next 15, 20, 30 years, it’s imperative to adopt these technologies.Some such mandatory guides are emerging. The CPWD has come up with its own BIM guidelines. The Government is asking for people to be trained on BIM. The Nagpur Metro used geospatial and BIM solutions to ensure the project stays on time and on budget. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has adopted 3D BIM in the Delhi Mass Rapid Transit System. Padode points out that Maharashtra is formulating a policy to mandate precast in real-estate construction. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is considering increasing the ceiling of the mandatory use of precast concrete from the existing 25 per cent to 75-80 per cent to mitigate pollution, prevent delays and control costs.Incentivising startupsIt’s alright to say that growing demand will inspire R&D spends in construction. But startups will need support to come up with the right solutions at the right price points. If you’re looking to replace a vitrified or granite tile with a sustainable tile and expect them to be the same price, that is impossible because the true cost or the whole lifecycle of granite is much more expensive – environmentally, health-wise and to the pocket, as opposed to a sustainable alternative, explains Kuchimanchi. But if we expect a startup to make a better tile, essentially, to come up with construction technology to make a sustainable product to replace an unsustainable product, we need ways to fund them faster, quicker, he continues. “Because in this discussion, while this is done, another 100 million tonne of concrete will be poured across India.”Funding will need to flow into software, hardware, materials, logistics, supply chain and other areas. The big question: Who will invest in startups?Some large contracting companies, and even real-estate companies, have a small investment arm, created to acquire technologies to help stay relevant in the next decade. To make sure they continue to grow and dominate the market, they build technology either solo or in partnership, and leverage that technology internally as well and internalise those processes, explains Bharech.Acceleration programmes such as REAP by the Brigade Group for companies at the intersection of tech and the built environment could help. REAP has so far accelerated more than 80 companies. It evaluates companies across the value chain, land to launch, wherever technology can play a role in the built environment. Successful companies have gone on to raise money, increase revenue, have inroads overseas and grow their valuation. One such company is Clairco, a startup in the air filtration space is now into energy-efficiency. Earth Fund, a SEBI category two registered Rs 300 crore fund, is another initiative investing in companies in real-estate technology. Foreign institutional investors are another option, according to Gandhi. Government-driven funds with the Saudi and Qatari governments, to invest in different sectors including construction, may also be an option.Alongside funding, startups will need support for market development. “We see a lot of inclination towards mechanical automation, physical AI, but the challenge is few buyers,” says Bharech. Gandhi believes selling technology is easiest after the construction project is over because by then a lot of the uncertainties of the preconstruction phase and construction phase, which make people reluctant to use new technology, are over. Once the project is ready, the revenue-cost math is very simple. “If you can either increase the revenue or reduce the cost, you will definitely find customers,” he says. Architects can help find customers in the real-estate space because developers are greatly influenced by architects, he continues. “If they feel the value very quickly, they’ll make a decision.”Experts also recommend tapping events because the industry is largely offline. Appointing champions of a technology can help get the word out and change reluctant mindsets. Good tidingsChina has resurfaced a 158-km expressway stretch using only AI-powered drones and autonomous robots – a 20-m-wide unmanned paver, six 13-tonne double-drum rollers and three 30-tonne rubber-wheeled rollers operating in a synchronised formation, orchestrated using advanced algorithms with a satellite positioning system offering centimetre level precision and a low latency communication network enabling real-time path planning and precise operational control. If that sounds impressive, it is.India lags behind in such feats. But not for long. Automated construction processes are already underway, offsite manufacturing promises to dominate in-situ construction and AI-driven project management is less than five years away.“The technology invasion may take five years or less, but whenever it enters your system, it will be so fast that everything will come together and you will have to use it,” cautions Dr Sudhir Hoshing, Chief Mentor, IRB Infrastructure Developers. “There will be no other way. In these competitive times, you’ll have to do so many other things to reduce your cost.”Like leaders, seize the opportunity to work better, deliver better and build the nation.Quotes“Today, our technology implementation has attracted the attention of the world.”- Lt Gen (Retd) Rajeev Chaudhry, Former Director General, Border Roads Organisation, and Chairman, RAHSTA EXPO Committee“Computers can control the positioning to the last millimetre to achieve the targeted accuracy.”- Sanjay D Patil, Vice President and Head, Bridges Business Unit, L&T Construction“In the planning and design stage, paper is no longer a necessity.”- Thomas Jacob, Director, MicroGenesis“A design solution should enable all the available detailing data to be inbuilt into one single digital design model.”- Sunil Lidkar, Territory Business Head, Trimble Solutions India“Xpedeon was designed to change manual reporting and the fact that everybody still works in silos on construction projects.”- Gokul Shirur, Director, Sales and Marketing, South Asia, Xpedeon“Sitepace is a visual layer to strengthen the existing technologies used in construction.”- Yash Shah, Founder and CEO, SitePace.ai“The entire customer digital lifecycle management happens on the Salesforce stack.”- Girish Hardkar, Chief Information and Digital Officer, Tata Reality and Infrastructure“The façade treatment of 3D printed villas can be your clients' own unique style.”- Kalyan Vaidyanathan, CTO, Tvasta Manufacturing Solutions“We provide equipment owners an option to maximise revenue and optimise utilisation, and renters payment security and comprehensive support.”- Janardhan Reddy N, Founder & CEO, AUEQI Technologies“A warehouse that opted for a 6-mm fiberglass bar instead of an 8-mm TMT bar cut about one-third of the cost, besides building greener.”- Sourabh Banthia, Managing Director, ShineStar Fiberglass Composite“Roads using organosilanes in areas seeing heavy rainfall have withstood four monsoons without developing potholes.”- Himanshu Agarwal, Chief Operating Officer, Zydex Industries“AI will not help build, but it can increase efficiency, accuracy and productivity.”- Abhay Garg, Head and Chief Mentor, Brigade REAP“AI investments in engineering and design can reduce the engineering cycle from 18 months to six months.”- Satyajit Dev Roy, Partner, KPMG“At present, the focus is on agentic AI and physical AI.”- Sabyasachi Chatterjee, Senior Director, Technology and Transformation, JLL India“In many of our projects, the availability of groundwater improved by 800 per cent.”- Jagdish Balaram, Head India and Global Business, The Ground Water Company“Raaya is like an Alexa for your construction site.”- Hemil Parekh, Director and Chief Executive Officer, Aasaan Tech“Impact serves contractors and suppliers, helping them make well-informed decisions on taking on a project.”- Tanveer Padode, CEO, Impacct“The deployment of BIM stops at the design level, whereas BIM could deliver value on the field.”- Harsh Pareek, Senior Director, Regional Sales, Trimble“We see a lot of inclination towards mechanical automation, physical AI, but the challenge is few buyers.”- Chaitanya Bharech, Co-Founder, C-Tribe Society, & CEO, Cognito Consulting“At a macro level, the use of technology is amply justified.”- Pratap Padode, Founder, ASAPP Info Global Services & FIRST Construction Council“Almost one-third of projects get delayed or exceed their budget because where we should use technology, we use manual labour.”- Satyajit Deb Roy, Partner, KPMG“The cost of sticking with manual systems is far higher than adapting to the right tech.”- Lalu Varghese, Director & CEO, RIB Candy Distributor: LALS Software Services“People must be part of your AI ambition. You don’t just say, ‘Let’s do AI’.”- Sabyasachi Chatterjee, Senior Director, Technology and Transformation. JLL India“For AI to run, you need structured data and that can only happen with standardisation.”- Roshan Bucha, Technical Sales Manager, Construction, Autodesk“No single solution can deliver in a process industry or is a panacea for all.”- Abhay Garg, Head and Chief Mentor, Brigade REAP“Any technology must clearly demonstrate its RoI metric or its return on intelligence.”- Nikhil Gandhi, Senior Investment Specialist, Invest India“Deploying precast technology out of Mumbai is challenging.”- Dr Ravindra Gettu, VS Raju Chair Professor, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) MadrasPrefabricated prefinished volumetric construction suits clients who say, ‘Accelerate your finishing’.”- Amit Barde, Head - Precast Initiative, L&T ConstructionRedevelopment projects are very keen to use 3D volumetric construction.- Sunil Desai, Managing Director, Dextra IndiaA software-based model to help investors in road assets to focus on lifecycle cost improvements is missing.- Dr Zafar Khan, Executive Director and Joint CEO, Highways Infrastructure Trust, and Vice President, Highways Operators Association of IndiaWhenever technology enters your system, it will be so fast that everything will come together and you will have to use it.- Dr Sudhir Hoshing, Chief Mentor, IRB Infrastructure DevelopersWhen the ecosystem evolves, funding for startups will automatically flow.- Sriram Kuchimanchi, Founder & CEO, Smarter Dharma