Home / PEOPLE / MEP / Victim of neglect

[More Images]

Continued neglect over the years has resulted in the domestic plumbing industry lagging behind the high standards adopted by developed countries says Sudhakaran Nair, president, Indian Plumbing Association and executive board member, World Plumbing Council in an interview with Rajesh Kulkarni

Plumbing and sanitary installations form a key part of all constructions but are largely neglected in India. What is your assessment of the situation?

Plumbing and sanitary installations should not be treated as just another building service since it has a direct impact on the health and safety of the population; not to mention the serious damages a poor installation can cause to the building structure. Millions fall prey to epidemics and many lives are lost due to a problem which can largely be rectified with increased awareness.

There is an increased level of appreciation now but a massive awareness campaign of unprecedented proportions will be needed in countries like India and China to achieve the desired results.

About 90% of plumbing works in the country are still carried out by the unorganised sector. What needs to be done to rectify the situation?

The answer is again lack of awareness. Someone spending Rs1 crore to construct a home will obviously be willing to spend a few extra thousands on plumbing works if he is aware that this is a critical component of his home. Most are happy with the plumbing they have because they are unaware that something better exists. Those in the plumbing industry usually have to educate their prospective customers in order to seek their business.

India never had a structure in place to produce educated and trained plumbing professionals. Plumbing is a vast engineering subject. Those of us practicing in India come from various educational backgrounds and have joined the profession mostly by accident. Therefore, there is a severe shortage of professionals. 

Story continues below

Advertisement

COMMENT Comment on this article

Hardly 10% of the plumbing works in our country are handled by what can be termed as the organised sector involving reputed consultants and contractors. Majority of these works can be considered to be of reasonable standards; comparable to works carried out in developed countries.

In the absence of mandatory regulations, conscious customers rely upon the reputations of the few experienced consultants and contractors to ensure that their projects achieve reasonable standards.  In a country of nearly 1.2 billion people, not more than ten or fifteen consultants and contractors have the knowhow and experience to handle large and sophisticated plumbing projects.

Which are the other important issues and challenges faced by the domestic plumbing industry?

The basic problem is lack of any government legislation to monitor standards. While most of our cities have strict regulations for fire protection and electrical installations, none exist for plumbing.

Continued neglect over the years has resulted in our industry being far behind the high standards adopted by the developed countries in every aspect of the trade – whether it is quality of products used, codes and standards implemented or construction practices adopted.

What has been the rationale behind the development of the Uniform Plumbing Code-India (UPC-I)?  How do you plan to implement the same?

One chapter in the National Building Code (NBC) is all that we have to provide recommendatory guidelines on plumbing works. Most designers depended on codes and design guides published in developed countries.

Our plumbing practices are primarily based on old British standards. 

The Uniform Plumbing Code-India (UPC-I) is a comprehensive document covering every aspect of plumbing installations. UPC-I with its accompanying publication – The Illustrated Training Manual – offers nearly 1000 pages of specifications, drawings, charts and tables. UPC-I supplements information available in the NBC.

The parent document, UPC, has been in publication for over 75 years and is implemented by law in most parts of the US and several other countries. A code committee formed by IPA, comprising some known experts from the Indian plumbing industry edited and modified UPC to create UPC-I.

UPC-I will be reviewed and re-published at regular intervals. Recommendations and suggestions will be invited from members and relevant ones will be incorporated during the revision process.