For the last three months of 2017, a jaw crusher deployed by the Star Construction company was wrecking down a three-story structure in Andheri, about 10 feet from the suburban railway tracks, to make way for a new swanky residential tower. A watch guard would stand at the tracks on high alert. When a train had safely departed, the guard would blow the whistle. Three whistles meant that the machine had to come to a halt to prevent debris from flying off and possibly hurting passengers. Blowing one whistle meant the work could resume.
Contrary to its name, Star Construction does the opposite of building. It demolishes the old to make way for the new, a job that has always existed in the construction industry but has become more sought after, important, and more challenging over the last decade as urban renewal has picked up pace.
With Indian cities undergoing a makeover — replacing creaky transportation modes with zippy highways and Metro lines, and low-rise buildings with skyscrapers — companies like Star Construction have not only multiplied, but also found a hot new job as ‘demolition contractors.’
“My grandfather started this business in 1985, mainly because he saw an opportunity in selling scrap. Back then, he would take 10-15 workers with him and manually break the structure down over a few days, mostly small shops and the occasional old wooden bungalows,” said Javed Choudhary, the head of Star Construction.
He added that the industry has changed over the last 10-15 years. “We are now using sophisticated machines to demolish multi-story buildings. Contracts can take anywhere between a month and three to conclude, depending on their complexity, and we get at least four to five such contracts in a year that keep us busy.”
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The first ones on real estate project site
When any real estate project in any of India’s major old cities begins, the first person on the job is a demolition contractor.
“The demand for demolition specialists has surged as many redevelopment projects that were stuck have now been receiving government approvals. There is a lot of growth potential in this activity,” said Rajesh Prajapati, a senior member of CREDAI-MCHI, a real estate developers umbrella body in Maharashtra.
He added that as demolition activities became more complex, the profile of demolition companies also changed. “Earlier, they would come with just basic equipment and a dumper. But now there are more sophisticated techniques and more efficient methods of demolition.”
Iqbal Shaikh of Bengaluru-based Accurate Demolishing said that when he started this work in 1985-1986, he was one of four or five demolition contractors in Karnataka’s capital. “Now, there are about a thousand such companies in Bengaluru alone, and there is work for everyone.”
He added that even 10 years ago, there were only three to four contracts a year involving the demolition of small houses. Now, the industry has exploded. “We are breaking ten-story buildings to build 40 floors and getting around 10-12 contracts a year,” Shaikh said.
The sudden growth in the demolition industry prompted some of the largest firms to join hands in 2019 and set up an umbrella organisation – the Indian Demolition Association (IDA). As per the first newsletter published by the IDA in November 2019, the industry had about 200 demolition companies, employing about 4,000 people, and additionally more than a thousand medium and small contractors.
“IDA helped Indian demolition contractors to gather at one platform and share their views and ideas. It also helps contractors receive guidance and advice from experienced companies for getting the work done in time by giving quality a priority,” said Akhil Jain of Delhi-based Jain Engineers & Consultants, and a committee member of the IDA.
However, despite the efforts, the demolition industry is still unorganised with many small contractors working for local neighbourhood builders with tight deadlines and compromised safety standards, industry insiders said.
“There are a lot of unorganised small players. The demolitions are unsafe. Ninety per cent of the time they get it right, but sometimes they do go wrong,” said Utkarsh Mehta, a partner in Edifice Engineering. He added that they have completed many projects that were left by contractors midway.
“But all this is slowly changing. Responsible builders have realised that this is not the way to do things,” Mehta said.
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Supertech towers–a watershed moment
On 28 August this year, hundreds watched as Noida’s Supertech twin towers – one 107-metre-high and the other 97 metres – came crashing down like a pack of cards.
For India’s demolition companies, this was a watershed moment, industry insiders told ThePrint. Usually, it is the builders who are in the limelight for breaching records on building the highest towers, but this time, the focus was on demolishers.
“SuperTech was most challenging because it was also so much in the limelight. Even if one thing had gone wrong, it would have taken us 15 years back. But we were confident of our engineering acumen. We are receiving appreciation letters saying we have done something big,” said Mehta whose Edifice Engineering demolished the twin towers.
Edifice has grown largely on the back of the infrastructure development boom across the country. “We first got into demolition work with another company in around 2005. There was a lot of infrastructure development around Mumbai. A new airport was coming up and there were plenty of jobs for demolishers in the pipeline. It was also a very unorganised industry,” Mehta added.
“There was an opportunity for mechanising this industry, and with this intention we bought our first machine in 2011 and since that day, we have never looked back,” he said. The company has been involved in projects such as the Mahatma Gandhi Setu bridge in Patna, the demolition of the old Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad, and others.
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High risk, margins in scrap
Some demolition contractors in India who started in the 1970s-80s did so because they saw value in the debris that construction companies couldn’t wait to get rid of. “When my grandfather started the business, developers would suggest to take the debris for free, but do take it away,” Choudhary said. “Now, we have to pay the construction company or the developer to demolish the structure,” he added.
Demolishers first assess the site, rubble, and scrap that the project is likely to yield. Based on this, they estimate how much they can pay the construction company that has contracted with them to do the demolition work. The value of the scrap is the demolisher’s earnings out of which the firm pays its overheads – the workforce and the machines required.
“Previously, the margins were high and the quantum of work was less. Now, it is the other way round,” Akhil from Jain Engineers said. The margins are slim, but the work is risky, especially in congested and fully developed metropolitan cities.
Shaikh remembers Bengaluru’s Falcon City project of the Prestige Group to be among his most challenging ones. “We had to demolish a 14-floor building which was on the side of a busy road. We had to manage the traffic, the public, and get support from civic authorities and police,” he said.
The higher the risk, the longer the project’s gestation period. It took Accurate Demolishing 45 days to complete the Falcon City demolition, when ideally in a clear field, demolishers take about 20-25 days for medium-storeyed structures of three or four floors. Mumbai with its narrow road and dense population is an even more difficult terrain, Choudhary said.
“A lot of time goes into demolishing in this city with the huge population, structures and more stringent rules on debris disposal. That is when jugaad (makeshift tricks) like the watchman and his whistle–at the Andheri site–come in handy,” he added.
(Edited by Tarannum Khan)