Victim of neglect

Rajesh Kulkarni , February 16th, 2009

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. 

How do plumbing standards in India compare with those in developed countries?

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.

Like the NBC, UPC-I too will be recommendatory until legislations are in place.  IPA plans to approach government bodies for adoption of UPC-I in due course.

Kindly elaborate on your plans to launch Plumbing Education to Employment Programmes (PEEP) in tandem with educational and vocational training institutes?

PEEP will include academic and certification courses and the basis of education will be UPC-I.  Clearly structured courses such as Plumbing Systems Design, Plumbing Construction Management and Plumbing Technology Programme will be launched. 

Like the publication of UPC-I, implementation of PEEP also will be through collaboration between IPA and the US-based International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO), an eighty year old, globally recognised organisation. IAPMO and IPA are members of the World Plumbing Council (WPC).

The IPA-IAPMO partnership will launch PEEP through existing colleges, polytechnics and industrial training institutes several of whom have shown interest. The target for launch is May-June 2009 when new semesters start in our institutions.

How do you plan to leverage PEEP with your Indian Institute of Plumbing that also focuses on education and training?

Indian Institute of Plumbing (IIP) is a charitable trust formed by IPA as our training and education arm.  IIP will represent IPA in implementation of PEEP. IIP had conducted some Professional Development Courses in Pune and assisted the College of Engineering Pune (CoEP) to prepare a curriculum for plumbing as an optional subject for graduate students of civil engineering.

To what extent has IPA been successful in educating the industry on the need for safe plumbing?  What has been the role played by technology?

Fifteen years of relentless efforts by IPA has created awareness in construction industry. Even till ten years ago, only a few reputed hotel and hospital groups employed plumbing consultants and contractors.

 Few from the real estate business sought professionals to do their plumbing works. Skyscrapers were built with masons and casual labourers doing the plumbing works.  Plumbing was ‘recognised’ only when troubles started.

All these have changed to some extent now. The irony is that just anyone can go and start a plumbing company as no licensing system is in place. 

There is a new realisation of bright prospects in virgin territory and people with little or no education or experience have joined the bandwagon. New technologies have emerged in the plumbing profession as well. Slowly but surely, our domestic industry has started adopting them.

How do you assess the role and efficacy of global bodies like the IAPMO and the World Plumbing Council in ensuring the global competitiveness of the Indian plumbing industry? 

The mission of WPC is to ‘unite the World Plumbing Industry to safequard and protect the environment and health of nations for the benefit of all’.  From its inception in 1990, WPC has been able to propagate the cause of good plumbing across the globe. 

With its global reach, WPC’s work has been beneficial to India. IPA’s collaboration with IAPMO for example, was facilitated due to the forum provided by WPC.

With financial contributions from its member organisations including the IPA, WPC has been able to arrange secondment of a plumbing expert to work with WHO.  Benefits of such work will obviously reach across the globe through the WHO network.