A concrete future aheadA concrete future ahead

Growing number of mega infrastructure projects coming up in the country is a boon to the prospects of construction equipment, especially concrete equipment. Construction Times finds out the trends and outlook for the segment.

Increasing construction activity in the infrastructure sector is the primary driver for the growth of the Indian construction equipment sector. The government is pushing for more projects in real estate and infrastructure in the coming years and this is pushing the demand for concrete equipment.

Market overview

Concrete is the major ingredient used in construction of buildings and infrastructure projects. Government's mega infrastructure creation plans and construction of affordable housing have created a major demand for concrete and subsequently concrete equipment. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has put plans in place to maintain the pace of highway development and construct 12,500 km of highways in the current financial year. Government of India plans to increase airports from 140 in FY23 to 225 by FY25 while adding airports at tier 2 and tier 3 cities. This will consume concrete in large quantity over the next 2-3 years. In real estate sector, government has given thrust on affordable housing with a Budget allocation of Rs 48,000 crore to propel the building of affordable homes under the PMAY scheme. The overall real estate sector has picked up across the country this year with many large-scale luxury projects coming up in the country. More residential tower projects are also coming up in metro cities. All these developments require concrete in large quantities and also concrete plant and equipment across the country.

Demand trend for concrete equipment

Real estate and infrastructure projects large scale that are coming up in the country has created more demand for higher capacity concrete plants and equipment. According to V G Sakthikumar, Chairman & Managing Director, Schwing Stetter India, the sanctioning of multiple infra projects, metro rail, high-speed rail projects and expressway projects has created an immense demand drive in the CE market and the increased connectivity brought by the completion of these projects also brings promise for more large scale infra projects. On the demand trend for concrete equipment, he adds, “Boom pumps are finding a significant space in the RMC sector like never before due to its one-man operation, thereby deleting excess manpower. Due to the increased demand for the ready-mix concrete and huge influx of projects awarded by the government, clients are opting for higher output batching plants, pumps, and mixers rather than equipment with smaller capacity.”

Concrete pavers are finding more demand in roads, airports, dams and irrigation projects. Ramesh Palagiri, Managing Director & CEO, Wirtgen India, highlights the trend in the concrete paver segment, “Due to the government policy shifting from concrete roads to bituminous roads, the demand for concrete pavers has declined. The market for concrete pavers has been varying in the past few years. Concrete roads are extremely durable. Their tremendous compressive strength prevents the formation of wheel ruts even when used by a high percentage of heavy vehicle traffic. Such concrete pavements, which need to withstand exceptional loads each and every day, are paved and smoothed by the Wirtgen slipform pavers at working widths from 2.5 mtrs to 16 mtrs.”

Technology trends

With the influx of large-scale construction projects in huge numbers across the country with stricter execution timelines, there is a need for technologically advanced equipment to carry out the construction activities. Concrete plants and equipment are also no exception in this regard. Leading concrete equipment players have introduced advanced features and technologies with their latest equipment and machinery. For eg, Wirtgen slipform pavers have several innovations like the automatic Dowel Bar insertor system (DBI), super smoother, central tie bar inserter, oscillating beam etc. Palagiri elaborates, “For concrete paving, the Wirtgen slipform pavers can now offer dual- layer concrete paving, where a single machine is used for dual layer concrete paving, the bottom layer and the top layer concrete are paved in a synchronized operation. It is additionally ensured that both the top and bottom layers are paved 'Wet-in-Wet' regardless of weather or site conditions. This can be done with single paver or with two pavers where it is necessary to distribute the operating weight to two separate machines.”

Schwing Stetter India offers concreting machines range consisting of self-loading mixers, truck mixers, batching plants, and concrete pumps. Sakthikumar shares more on the specialities of these equipment, “Our machines are consistent performers in the construction and concreting arena, which has facilitated our ability to retain our customers who continue to prefer SCHWING products to be deployed in any upcoming or ongoing projects.

We have recently added 14 new products to the concreting and construction equipment range. Our new launches are packed with features like IoT, Cloud data integration, increased ergonomics, and much more. SCHWING is also an exporter of product designs with the support of our design department inducted into our R&D wing. With experienced professionals working round-the-clock on various projects, we are always in the process of developing customised and updated machines to the market in the future as we have done in the past.”

A promising future

The construction industry in India is well on track of continuous creation of projects that are imperative for the overall development of the country and a bridge towards becoming a $5 trillion economy. In general, construction equipment industry sees some silver line for the coming years, after a slow restart of construction activities post pandemic. Concrete equipment specifically has seen remarkable growth this year and is expected to continue the momentum in the coming years as well. Sakthikumar adds, “The market is growing at a rate of 17-20% across all categories of concrete equipment and the subsiding pandemic have now instilled confidence among the stakeholders which can be seen in the rising order booking presently. Due to the huge investment plan in the infrastructure development by the government such as NIP, the demand for enormous RMC requirement has made the concrete business stakeholders to shift to higher capacity products of horizontal batching plants such as H1.25 J, higher capacity pumps such as 1807 RMC, SP2809 etc. For transportation, the transit mixers have shifted from 6 cu m capacity to 7 cu m and 8 cu m as standard procurement. Boom pumps with higher reach such as S36 and S47 are popular.”

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