Proper town planning is needed to absorb the future growth in vehicle population and expansion of construction industry stemming from the growing requirements of a growing population, said S. Natarajan, General Manager & Head, Construction Skills and Training, L & T.

“If we do not do our town planning in a better way, we are going to end up in a situation where there would be no space for construction of new buildings. We may have integrated townships comprising all basic infrastructure such as schools, colleges and hospitals not to speak of the implementation of a work culture involving less travel in future,” said Mr. Natarajan while inaugurating TECHNOCRAT 2K13, a national-level technical symposium, organised by the Department of Civil Engineering of Thanthai Periyar Government Institute of Technology (TPGIT) on the college campus here on Wednesday.

He stressed the need for an integrated traffic management taking into account the increasing vehicle population, the emergence of new buildings and the on-going road repair and other works involving digging of roads. “Though we keep on laying new roads and widening roads, the increase in vehicle population would result in a situation in future where there would be no roads for the vehicles to ply. Even at present, we do not have a situation where we could travel from one place to another within the given time. This buttresses the need for a proper traffic management,” he said.

The country would face a situation where within another 10 years, only green buildings would be approved, in view of the critical energy and environment situation. The green building concept envisages use of construction materials which could be recycled and used in the construction industry when the building needed to be demolished for some purpose or the other. The concept also incorporated low carbon emission and energy efficiency.

The L & T official said that employment was not a problem for civil engineering students, but employability would be a problem for them if they failed to acquire communication skills and other soft skills which are expected of them from employers. Though many civil engineers are produced by engineering colleges, more than 60 to 70 per cent of them go for the IT industry.

“Civil engineering is the best profession to those who stick on to it,” he said. Hard work and application of mind was very essential for civil engineers, he added.

Mr. Natarajan released a souvenir in connection with the symposium. S. Rajkumar, Vice-Principal, TPGIT, who presided, said that jobs are plenty for civil engineers as the construction of new buildings and destruction of old buildings would be a continuing process. Besides, a lot of research is going on in areas of making of construction products using recovered used tyres, value-added construction materials from building debris, development of composite materials, and fire-proof and earthquake-proof structures.

G. Panneerselvam, professor and Head of the Department of Civil Engineering, TPGIT, who welcomed the gathering, urged the students to be smart and acquire extra-curricular skills so that they become employable in a situation where the supply of civil engineers was more than the demand.

J. Sreerambabu, convener, said that the symposium was a good platform for students to develop their extra-curricular skills. S. Manoj, student secretary, proposed a vote of thanks.