Civil Engineering, a domain which has been catalyzing civilizations across the world since ages is shouting out for major reforms. The recent, subsequent lockdowns imposed to contain the spread of Coronavirus gave a thunderous jolt to the infrastructure sector. Similar, experiences were felt upon imposition of RERA, GST and implementation of demonetization. However, those adversities were felt mainly because of unscrupulous elements and functioning existent in the system. Circulation of black money, time and cost overruns, deviations from planned and authorized blueprints, etc. were some of them.
We all are aware about how well paid an IT professional, business analyst, financial analyst is as compared to a civil engineer. Let us compare their professional life below-
- An IT professional enjoys weekends as their off days, whereas a civil engineer, especially a site engineer is required to work even on Saturdays and get only Sundays as their weekly off.
- Civil Engineers can rarely avail Work from Home facility as it is the nature of work that demands their presence on site. So yes, they are hard-working and physically more active and alert.
- Working hours for people on site are very much compromised as against those who enjoy 8-10 hours of fixed working duration during a day working in manufacturing and other corporate offices.
- People working in infrastructure projects like- highways, metro, etc. are working day and night so that they could help their employing organization to deliver the public utility on time and avoid any cost overruns beyond speculated inflation risks considered during budget planning. But, the same is not as harsh and severe in other streams.
- When it comes to salary packages and incentives, there exists a wide disparity between civil engineering professionals and an IT professional. A civil engineer with 2-3 years of experience will be having an average package of 4-5.5 LPA and if the organization is considerate enough they might provide with accommodation and food facility. Whereas, on the contrary, the IT professional stands better chances of securing packages beyond 6LPA with other benefits as listed above.
- Mistakes have a heavy cost and every second is money. It must be noted, even a slight mistake in detailing or execution may lead to collapse or failure of the proposed or built-up structure. Hence, even a fresher is expected to have some experience before joining any organization. Whereas, in other fields, such as analytics, software development, etc. mistakes can be rectified with the click of a mouse, hence professionals here again stand a better chance for numerous lucrative opportunities.
- Resilience power of infrastructure sector against any reform or pandemic is extremely poor as compared to other sectors. This only because of the nature of work, poor monitoring and implementation of government schemes.
As per Economic Times, Civil engineering registered the lowest placement of 38% between 2012-13 and 2015-16. This data is slated to get worsened during 2020-21, because of COVID.
India Today, highlighted in 2019 that India’s construction industry will contribute to 13% of its GDP by 2025 but the construction sector saw a decline by 6.25%.
As per CMIE- Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, more than 20 million salaried people lost their jobs because of lockdown.
ROAD AHEAD-
- The engineering curriculum must be re-designed on the basis of industry requirements. It has been observed and experienced by many that upon joining some organization we lack practical skills.
- The course content of the 4-year engineering course can be utilized for cracking examinations like- GATE, IES, and other state and central examinations seeking requirement for civil engineers. However, many students drop out after completing their degree course for preparing and appearing for these government jobs and spend years to qualify the same. But, some even upon sincere and desperate attempts fail and are subsequently deemed unfit for employment in private organizations because of their lack of practical skills and knowledge.
- The internship and industry exposure course must be made mandatory for at least a year, by eliminating the course of 1st year which is futile. Colleges and industries- both private and government organizations must be incentivized for imparting training by the education ministry.
- Industry should also be incentivized by the government to recruit freshers so that because of the lack of opportunities they are not forced to switch streams.
- Interior fit-outs, transformation and valuation is expected to flourish.
- There are many youtube channels which are providing practical knowledge and exposure to real-life situations. Such channels can be a source of learning by many under-privileged civil engineering aspirants.
- Faculty should be mandated to organize industrial conferences and take part in various workshops. IITs, VIT, NIT, BITS, BIT and many other colleges are doing progressively well, but others need to gear up.
- Development of quality content along with real-life case studies must be the focus of budding and senior academicians.
- We need a paradigm shift in the thinking of the public who fathom corporate jobs as superior to site execution jobs.
- Organizations need to value their employees and have faith in their contribution. They must focus on enhancing their skills and appreciating their efforts. Obviously, repeated failures and losses can’t be compromised and compensated. But having a good and productive working environment will increase employee’s faith in their employer, increase organizational citizenship behaviour, job satisfaction.
