CREDAI and RICS collaborate to offer courses for real estate

The  Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India (CREDAI) and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) announced a joint initiative to address the learning needs of professionals in real estate and construction sectors.

Both CREDAI, the association of real estate developers in India and RICS,a global professional body for built environment would develop joint programmes for real estate/construction professionals. The duration of these programmes would range from 2 weeks to 6 months which include combination of distance learning and face to face workshops.

On the successful completion of their respective programmes, participants will be presented with certificates by 'RICS Professional Education'. To begin with, the workshops would be held in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and other metro cities, depending on participant enrolments in a particular city.

Some of these programs are in partnership with academic institutions such as The College of Estate Management (CEM), Royal Agricultural College (RAC) and Cambridge International Land Institute (CILI). The courses have been structured primarily for working professionals. RICS  has already been offering specialised educational programs customised for the Indian market, to up-skill working professionals at par with international standards.

Amongst many challenges in Indian real estate, the immense shortage of skilled professionals leads to delay in project deliveries, cost runs and compromised quality. CREDAI has therefore taken the lead to ensure development firms upgrade the knowledge and skills of their teams and has partnered with RICS to offer specialised RICS educational programs to its members and their staff.

"CREDAI and its members are at the forefront of building real estate in India. Therefore, we are keen to provide an equal emphasis to our members, as is presently laid on innovation in tools and technology, to also apply to building professional expertise in order to deliver world class projects, which are of the highest quality standards," said Dharmesh Jain, A Balakrishna Hegde, Vijay Mirchandani and Rohit Raj Modi, Committee Training Cell, CREDAI.

As per a RICS research report, there is a demand-supply gap in the range of 82-86 per cent in the core professions group comprising of civil engineers, architects and planners which are the foundation of technical skills. It said that to deliver potential real estate space and planned infrastructure, India would need nearly 4 million civil engineers, 3,96,000 architects and 1,19,000 planners on an average, over the next decade. However the corresponding average supply available would only be 6,42,000 civil engineers, 65,000 architects and 18,000 planners.

Sachin Sandhir, MD, RICS-South Asia said, "Although the real estate and construction sectors are key contributors to economy, there is a complete vacuum of education and training options available for professionals to up-skill. This partnership is a huge stepping stone to ensure that a majority of industry now has easy and economical access to education and training options of the highest standards, which in turn will help the sector become more professional and efficient."