Companies that earlier took 36 months on housing projects are now completing them in around 30 months by boosting efficiencies and using modern technology. Commercial project developers are going a step further, completing projects in 17 months instead of 24.

In some instances, mainly in smaller commercial buildings, developers are trying to cut down the project completion time to a mere 9 months. Take Mahindra & Mahindra's upcoming special economic zone in Jaipur. The company has squeezed the construction time for a commercial building to nine months from the normal 12-15 months. It began the construction of a four-storey building in November last year and has already completed two floors with complete fit-outs that already house a BPO unit.

The construction work of DLF and Indiabulls in Mumbai, Parsvnath (Delhi) and Sobha (Bangalore) is progressing even during the monsoons. "Even if we cut the construction time by two months, we will save up to 20 per cent on labour and preliminary expenses, although the material costs remain the same,'' said JC Sharma, managing director of the Bangalore-based Sobha Developers, which is the main contractor for Infosys.

Sobha has prepared its own construction manual, an amalgamation of Bureau of Indian Standards and DIN (German Standards), which talks about the dos and don'ts of construction. Methods, safety-codes, tools and processes are photographed and filmed to show how construction could be speeded up. The company has also set up an in-house training school to train engineers, masons and architects on new technologies, processes and systems.