India, Inc. opts for more foreign pros

NEW DELHI: Indian construction companies will soon have foreign edge to its wokforce. Faced with an acute shortage of experienced civil engineers in India, construction majors like Larsen & Toubro, Punj Lloyd, Simplex and Soma Enterprises have started recruiting engineers from countries like the Philippines, Ukraine, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

Currently, they are taking on engineers with specialised qualifications and vast experience in certain areas from these countries. The new recruits are posted at both domestic and overseas projects, depending on the requirements.

Punj Lloyd CMD Atul Punj told ET that his company has already recruited 45 engineers, mainly from the Philippines and Indonesia. "We plan to recruit a much bigger batch soon," he said. The other two, Soma Enterprises and Simplex, are also learnt to have recruited engineers in small numbers from these countries.

Industry behemoth L&T, on the other hand, is mainly hiring from the Middle East. Most of the incumbents are Indian engineers settled there. L&T now regularly gives out wanted advertisements in the region's leading publications. Gulf recruits are employed in its overseas as well as domestic projects.

Overseas hiring by construction majors is expected to run into several hundreds by the end of the year. "The fact is the country doesn't churn out many civil engineers to meet demand from the domestic construction industry, and many of us are surviving by poaching engineers from other companies. But there are not enough senior and experienced engineers to poach now," says Amitabh Mundhra, director, Simplex Infrastructure. Mr Mundhra now plans to fill this gap by importing (hiring) senior engineers from foreign countries.

Industry circles said more domestic construction companies are expected to poach from foreign markets, especially the South-East Asian market, for engineers with special skill sets. The award of complex tenders in areas such as oil, pipeline and petrochems and pre-conditions by some nodal agencies like National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) regarding engineers' experience in awarding works are also cited as among the reasons for overseas hiring binge.

"The Indian construction industry has just begun to move from a manual mode of construction to high mechanisation. Similarly, project sizes have suddenly gone up tenfold. But there are not enough engineers with the experience to manage such kind of projects," says Rajendra Prasad Maganti, chairman and managing director, Soma Enterprises. He lists talent crunch as the biggest challenge right now.