When it needed to complete a large-scale government housing project cost-effectively and in record time, BSBK Group chose Elematic’s SEMI precast plant as the ideal solution.

India’s housing shortage is rarely out of local headlines these days. With a shortage of 2.8 million housing units across the country, thanks to rapid growth of population and urbanization, it has left the Indian government with little option but to sit up and take note!

The capital city of Chhattisgarh state, Naya Raipur, is one place where the government has decided to construct 40,000 housing units for the lower income segments, but with precast technology. The first tender was awarded to the Indian construction company BSBK Group for 6,300 housing units. The contractor needed to design the building, infrastructure and complete the project as a whole – a daunting challenging indeed, but BSBK knew how to solve it.
“The best technology is precast technology,” VR Chetty, Vice President, BSBK Group, said. “You have to construct so many houses within such a short time period, so there will be a huge requirement of labour, which is not possible. Secondly, there’s the issue with quality: compared to conventional systems, the quality of precast technology is much better.”

Record installation time
The 99-year-old company has executed a wide variety of projects in civil steel engineering, industrial, and public buildings, hospitals, roads and bridges. But, the Naya Raipur project was unique in many ways. The project had a specific defined timeframe of just 36 months.
“This is a turnkey project which includes the design and construction of the building along with the associated facilities,” said Shirang Gupta, Business Development Executive at BSBK. “Seeing the quantum of construction required and the short timeframe, we decided to go for precast technology.”
The leading Finnish precast technology supplier, Elematic, understood BSBK’s requirements and proposed SEMI precast plant, which consists of SEMI floor and SEMI wall line. What came as a relief was that the plant came to their expected budget. Moreover, SEMI precast plant produces precast elements as per their daily production requirements.
While it usually takes a minimum of 6-7 months to install and commission a precast plant, keeping the tight schedule in mind, the precast plant in Naya Raipur was installed in record time; manufacturing of moulds and machinery in India and Finland started in March 2016 and the plant was completed in August 2016.



“The plant was partially supplied from India and by the time the Finnish machinery arrived, Indian machinery and tables were installed. So, it helped them to start production in record time,” said Sandeep Sharma, Business Development Manager at Elematic.

SEMI floor and SEMI wall lines ideal for India
The plant at Naya Raipur is the biggest plant for BSBK Group, which consist of Elematic SEMI hollow core slab line with four beds, an extruder and a sawprerer, and a SEMI wall line with 20 tilting KVT tables, 15 mechanical tables, staircase moulds, and casting skips. The total concrete volume is around 150 M³ produced every day.
“SEMI Floor line is an ideal investment to start with precast construction because it does not involve much automation but still produces high quality wall panels,” said Sharma. SEMI lines offer an effective alternative that can efficiently produce up to 600 square feet per day, and production does not require in-depth knowledge of the staff.

Many large-scale housing projects – such as the one in Naya Raipur – come with wide set of demands. One is a cost issue, and investments in precast production equipment can add yet another burden on the project.
“Earlier, if one had large scale precast production requirements, either they had to go with individual hydraulic tables or a circulation line which requires a bigger initial investment and skilled labour for operations,” said Sharma. “Once Elematic introduced the SEMI production lines for precast walls and floors, it became possible to start using precast as a building method without any big investment to the production equipment. With SEMI wall Line, all the tables are manufactured in India and only the wagon is being imported from Finland. It helps to reduce lead time and requires a lower initial investment.”


SEMI wall line is very good solution to produce precast wall panels, such as load bearing walls, façades, sandwich wall panels and solid panels. SEMI wall line consists of tables and a special KVT wagon that takes care of compaction, vibration and tilting operations and caters up to 20 tables easily.

Future tech here today
To truly understand how precast technology works, BSBK attended seminars and international exhibitions in China, Mumbai and Bangalore. The company’s directors went to actual sites to see and understand what type of machines would suit best for their needs. BSBK was satisfied that Elematic was the market-leading supplier and ideal partner.
“In the field of precast technology and equipment, Elematic is pioneer. The machines and service are very good. It is also a very important factor that Elematic has a proper technical support team,” Chetty said.
“After purchasing it, we are satisfied with the performance of all the machines,” said Rohit Singh, Vice President, Plant and Machinery, BSBK Group.

So, is precast technology the answer to India’s mass housing woes? At the outset, the future of precast technology looks bright in the country, and it may just be the ideal solution to address the country's housing crisis. Already around 24 million houses are planned to be built with precast technology. Ask BSBK, who are more than convinced of its advantages.
“We would like to set up a more advanced plant for precast technology, and to provide more jobs, so that we can expand the precast technology in a proper way and gradually enter the private sector too,” Chetty said.