Analysis of challenges and opportunities of prefabricated sandwich panel system: A solution for affordable housing in India

Abstract

The Indian construction sector is emerging as the third-largest sector to take our country toward a $5 trillion economy. However, all industries, including the construction industry, are facing new challenges in this crisis. Specifically, challenges pertaining to delay in delivery of projects, time, and cost overruns have become prominent. In the real estate sector, there is huge demand for housing in our country i.e. 11.2 million dwelling units in urban areas and 29.5 million dwelling units in rural areas in India by 2022. To deal with such a huge demand where the construction industry is already facing many problems, it is real-time to adopt the new construction technologies. As the conventional method of construction is a time and cost-consuming process, it is mainly labor-intensive where the quality of construction is a crucial issue. So for addressing these problems, the government of India has taken the initiative called Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana: housing for all urban and rural by 2022. Under this scheme, 54 new technologies have been approved under 6 different categories by the BMTPC. Consequently, there are several technologies available for low-cost housing but it is challenging to recommend one technology for a countrywide practice. In this paper, the components of the prefabricated sandwich panel system (falling under one of the 6 categories) are discussed in detail further the various opportunities and onsite challenges coming out while implementing this technology are enlisted and possible solutions are provided.