1.Introduction: Pre-budget economic survey indicates that we have achieved a growth rate  of  8.70% of  GDP during the fiscal year 2007-’08  and the country is poised to achieve a growth  close to   9%  of GDP during the 11th Five Year Plan Period. According to one estimate, the country had spent about 3.6% of GDP in infrastructure development during the year 2005 and during the current 11th Five Year Plan Period; the anticipated capital outlay for physical infrastructure would be of the order of 6% of GDP.  It is gratifying to note that the country has taken a sustainable growth trajectory of close to 9% of GDP. Roughly, two-thirds of the incremental increase in GDP is spent in development of physical infrastructure.  To translate it in to rupee terms, the expenditure that  would be spent in infrastructure development would be a mind boggling or staggering   sum of about rupees nine lakh crore             (Rs.9, 00,000 Crore) per annum. For building physical infrastructure, we require engineers of various disciplines and more importantly Civil Engineers in required strength and competency. Unfortunately, the period preceding opening of our economy, the field of Civil Engineering was not at all rosy. It presented a gloomy picture of unemployment, underemployment and bleak career prospects for Civil Engineers. The age old branch of Civil Engineering had lost its sheen and it had become an option of the last resort. In the later day established engineering colleges, we do not generally find civil engineering branch, simply because of the reason, it has no takers.  The unprecedented impetus we are witnessing today in development of physical infrastructure calls for deployment of a large number of competent Civil Engineers. The demand of Civil Engineers as of now is far in excess of Civil Engineers engendered by engineering colleges. There is a yawning gap between supply and demand of Civil Engineers. The mismatch between demand and supply of Civil Engineers poses a formidable problem in coping with physical infrastructure development .The silver lining is that the  field of civil engineering has now become   a greener posture, enticing even a bright student to opt for  it  for pursuing, one of the much sought after, professional qualifications.  In this succinct article, I would like to review the current scenario of Civil Engineering from the point of view of Career Prospects.

2. Main area of Job opportunities:  Even though in eighteenth century the main domain of civil engineering activity was limited to construction of roads and bridges, now to the delight of the Civil Engineering student, it has opened up a wide spectrum of job opportunities. Some of the areas of job opportunities are enumerated as follows.  (a) Irrigation works (b) Roads, bridges railways, and other cross masonry works (c) Power generation and transmission projects (d) Real estate development, housing, construction of malls, workshops , commercial establishments  etc (e) Airports ((f) Seaports (e)  Water supply, sanitary, drainage collection and disposal systems etc.  (f) Telecommunications etc.  (g) Solid waste management (h) Teaching and other plethora of areas of physical infrastructure works providing employment opportunities for civil engineers.

3.  Assessment of demand of Civil Engineer based on guesstimates:
Assuming that about twenty five percent of expenditure incurred for developing physical infrastructure, is spent for construction of civil works,   the expenditure on civil works would be about  Rs.2,25,000 crore. Maintenance expenditure @ 0.50% of the capital expenditure works out to Rs.1, 125 crore. Keeping in view the CPWD yard sticks of manpower requirement of Civil Engineers, I estimate the requirement of engineering graduates as follows. I surmise that about 9 engineering graduates of various grades are required for organizing rupees ten crore worth of construction work or rupees one crore worth of maintenance works, in case the works are organized by a government body.  Most of the major capital works are now being taken up under Public Private Participation (PPP). Taking note of the forte of the private sector, in organizing works in cost effective way, the manpower requirement by the private companies would be just about 33% of the figure worked out above.  My guesstimate is now we require about

70, 000 engineering graduates every year to be deployed for organizing civil engineering works alone.  In addition to that, we require civil engineering diploma holders and ITI certificate holders in adequate strength.

4. Supply side position: Students coming out from engineering colleges at graduation level at present may be about 5, 00,000 persons /annum. (This figure is based on an assessment of production of 3, 50,000 students made by the Popular press during the year 2004).The strength of candidates of civil engineering discipline may be roughly one tenth of the total intake of the engineering graduates. The figure works out to roughly 50,000 numbers per annum.

5 Analysis: Ten percent of the cream of civil engineering students may be opting for lucrative IT jobs. IT companies are picking up bright engineering students irrespective of discipline of study for IT jobs, because of their core strength, ability to grasp and assimilate IT skills. IT is an attractive arena for a couple of reasons (a) Exposure to global environment (b) Best career prospects with right working milieu.  Besides this, most of the engineering courses are to a large extent getting converged with IT content, leaving limited time and scope for studying basic engineering subjects. About one percent of engineering students may be opting for Civil Services, Banking, Management studies etc leaving about 44, 500 numbers of students available for deployment for organizing construction and maintenance works. Out of the lot, about fifty percent of students coming out of the engineering colleges are substandard, not fit for employment.  A student who is conversant with AutoCAD, skilled in operating STAAD.Pro, PERT and CPU techniques and familiar with such other software etc, who can grasp construction and contract management intricacies, would be picked up. The rest of the guys would have to struggle to find a  place in the construction industry.

Recommendations: There is a flood gates of opportunity wide open for civil engineering students on a scale never witnessed before.  As seen from the above detail, it is clear that the supply of competent and eligible civil engineering students is miserably short of the current demand.  Civil Engineering Students cannot be produced overnight. Secondary treatment or importance given to civil engineering discipline for the last one and a half decades of time needs sufficient period for correction, in order to meet growing demand of civil engineering students.  Career profile and emoluments of competent civil engineers are comparable to that of the best in the IT sector as well. It is no longer an act of imbecility if a student opts for studying civil engineering and prospective students may ponder over, about the present opportune field of civil engineering at the time of exercising career options.

References: 1. Infrastructure in India Insurmountable Challenge or Promising Business Opportunity? ByPaul Hugentobler Zurich Oct2, 2006 (Consulted from a Web site). 2. History of Civil Engineering by John Wier, Historical Chair, Fort Worth Branch ASCE, January 2007(Consulted from a Web site)