ETRealty reported that central government’s increased focus on infrastructure is one of the major reasons behind the rising labour cost in real estate industry, according to the industry experts. “In last three years, the cost of labor had definitely increased in the range of 15-20%. This was due to the demand of labor force in infrastructure sector as well as the massive scale of construction in real estate itself,” said Mr Ashok Verma, CEO (International Business), Rudrabhishek Enterprises.

Government’s investment in infrastructure during the same period has increased by over 150%.

Finance minister Mr Arun Jaitley increased the investment in infrastructure in 2016-17 to Rs 2.18 lakh crore, which was further increased to Rs 3.96 lakh crore in 2017-18. Currently the government investment in creating and upgrading infrastructure stands at Rs 5.97 lakh crore in 2018-19.

Apart from this, an outlay of Rs 2.04 lakh crore has been allocated till date for 99 smart cities to aid in the implementation of various projects.

NSN Murty, Partner and Leader- Smart Cities, PwC India, said that “Government expenditure on thousands of projects initiated under Smart Cities Mission across India going has already created a large marketplace for private sector and is going to further translate into jobs at all level, better and efficient infrastructure and liveable cities for everyone.”