The raging growth of the infrastructure sector could well be stemmed as the sector is facing an acute manpower crunch, as high as 50% in some areas. And, the shortage is the highest where it hurts the most, the middle-management level.

Moreover, shortages are growing each passing day with not many institutes training professional according to the specific skill sets required for the sector and the situation is getting critical lower down the hierarchy as well.

?Manpower shortage has been critical with almost 50% shortage of talent in the sector. Going forward from here, with more projects being commissioned, the situation would only get more acute,? said Krishna Thota, DGM, HR, Soma Enterprises.

With the advancement in technology, newer machines too have come into the sector. Thus, skilled and semi-skilled professionals, who have an exposure to these heavy tools, too are a rarity. Sale of machines like loaders, excavators, crushers and telescopic cranes is growing at an annual rate of 30%, but the skills to operate them are not available.

?Skilled engineers for structural designing of bridges and highways are scarce. The institutes, including the government ITI, are not catering to the skill sets required for the sector. Moreover, while earlier civil engineers were sitting unemployed, these days they are being picked up from the colleges at a decent salary,? said Ashok Sehgal, Senior VP, HR, DS Constructions.

But what has caused this dearth in manpower resources? The answer to this is the information technology boom in 2001-02. All engineers, civil or otherwise, grabbed the opportunity to be a part of that growth wave. The resultant, while there are professional at the top level, and fresh talent available off the colleges, professionals with 4-5 years of experience, typically at project manager level, are just not there.

?The IT boom took with it all the potential talent for the infrastructure sector. It was 2001-02 that the sector was just opening, but IT had arrived. Thus the shift was not only of the engineering graduates, but also students started taking more to other disciplines,? said Harsh Shrivastava, Senior VP, Feedback Ventures.

However, not all companies have found the going tough. Big names have attracted talent and have been able to retain them as well. ?We have not had a problem with the shortage. In terms of talent, good companies generally attract the right people for the job,? said Amitabh Mundra, director, Simplex Infrastructure.

Meanwhile, what this run of events has meant is that training costs as a function of the total HR costs has seen an increase. At present the industry-wide expenditure is 13%-15% of the total HR costs, growing at an average of 15% per annum.

Recently, a study by Assocham revealed manpower shortage of 50-60% in the construction and engineering sector. The sector formed a meagre 8.7% of the employment opportunities compared to 24% in the IT industry.