Marathon challenges convention at every stage

Our focus has been to help build practices and interventions that help us redefine real estate.

Mayur Shah, Managing Director, Marathon Group

Briefing on the recent performance of construction industry in India Mayur Shah, Managing Director, Marathon Group says, “With the government of India’s major focus on the ‘Housing for All’ vision 2022, demonetisation and Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), the industry has moved into a period where building projects and delivering them on time would be a defining factor for the success of the construction and real estate industry.”

India’s GDP is expected to grow at a fast pace as compared to other economies. Also because of population growth, impetus by government on affordable housing, infrastructure development and emergence of nuclear families there is going to be lot of demand generation for affordable housing and is set to grow going forward. With the real estate growth in last decade, it has already started putting pressure on natural resources. Sand used in construction is a natural resource and is being used after dredging from river. With the growth in the real estate and construction sector, it has already started putting strain on this natural resource and government has to put ban on sand dredging from river because of its ecological impact.

With announcement of major new and upcoming infrastructure developments like – transharbour sea link and Airoli-Katai tunnel naka in the growth corridors of Mumbai like – Panvel, Kalyan-shil Road, Dombivli and Badlapur; it has become imperative to adopt the best in terms of raw materials and construction best practices that help in building resilient and environment friendly structures.

Shah adds, “We believe that given the fact that we are amongst the most populated and important economies of the world, it is only natural that building sustainable projects will drive the success of India’s contribution to the green and healthy world for the times to come.”

Steel is one such materials that impacts the way we incorporate sustainability into our projects. Today, the industry has become aware and making efforts to build sustainable projects. Use of recyclable raw materials, employing studies to design environment friendly buildings, green building measures for recycling and harvesting are some of the areas of construction practices that are helping in building sustainability as a tenet into construction projects. “Slow and steady urbanisation of rural India presents an immense opportunity to build spaces and structures that offer ample opportunities to learn execute and offer truly innovative and technology driven projects,” Shah believes.

He adds, “With the increasing demand from MNCs to set up their offices in India, very naturally the industry is moving towards benchmarking construction practices that help in building structures that are at par with international structures and also help ensure energy conservation.”

How to bring sustainability in to Indian construction industry

To build sustainability as a part on Indian construction industry, Shah opines it is important to approach various aspects of construction value chain right from the start-of-the-choice of raw materials to the completion of finished projects.

He adds, “Some key aspects that we need to look into are undertaking studies that help us understand what we can bring in from international markets vis-à-vis energy conservation, ventilation and natural and artificial light analysis, waste management, building strong and resilient structures that are maintained with minimal maintenance and eco-friendly raw materials.”

He further suggests, “Sustainability should be a subject of study and discussion at the grass roots level in schools, imparting information regarding green building practices and awareness towards it are built amongst our youth. Government must provide some incentive structure for the contractors and developers community that will encourage them to move towards green building and sustainable practices.”

Sustainability practices

Sharing views on the practices followed by his company to bring sustainability to the business, Shah says, “Our focus has been to help build practices and interventions that help us redefine real estate. We believe in challenging convention at every stage. We have succeeded in undertaking benchmarking studies; studying the international design and sustainability measures for commercial structures to build iconic commercial premises in Mumbai,”

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