Larsen & Toubro announced the achievement of ‘Mission 96’, a plan to build a 12-storey residential tower for their client, CIDCO (City and Industrial Development Corporation), with 96 flats in just 96 days using the company’s precast large concrete panel system for ultra-rapid construction of public housing. The tower is a part of about 23,432 EWS and LIG houses being constructed by CIDCO under Package IV of the PMAY in Navi Mumbai at Bamandongri, Kharkopar and Taloja.

L&T’s ‘Mission 96’ was achieved by using precast technology that is touted as the future of construction of residential towers for mechanised rapid construction with superior quality based on controlled manufacturing in a factory environment. Mission 96 involved the production and installation of 1,985 precast elements of the superstructure along with architectural finishes and MEP works over a built-up area of 64,000 sq ft.

Speaking on the sidelines of an event held to showcase the completed tower Ashwin Mudgal, IAS, Joint MD, CIDCO, said, “Great to see the record making process by L&T, which will pave the way for use of such technologies and excellent shop floor management in future.” Padma Bhushan Architect, Hafeez Contractor added, “L&T, that pioneered aluminium formwork construction in the country and changed the face of the residential sector, has been instrumental in driving Precast Technology to further achieve material sustainability and speedy construction,” adding that the company’s focus on prefabricated pre-finished volumetric construction would help it to meet the growing demand for housing in India.

“At buildings and factories, we have always sought ways and means to speed up the pace of construction and this project is another successful effort to dramatically reduce construction cycle time,” remarked MV Satish, Whole Time Director and Senior Executive Vice President (Buildings), L&T. He mentioned about the formation of a special unit, B&F Fast, to focus on evolving methods and deploying technology to build to speed and scale that had recently completed a 7-storey, state-of-the-art Flight Control System Integration Centre for DRDO in just 45 days. “Apart from construction technology, digital technology also helped us achieve this rapid pace of construction. We adopted the Concrete Maturity method to monitor the development of concrete strength in real time with digital meters for seamless construction and monitored progress using the Digital Twin approach with a BIM model developed for the project.”

Flagged off on April 4, 2022, L&T reached their first milestone of 12 floors in 36 days achieving an unprecedented 3-day floor construction cycle against the industry norm of 8 to 12 days per floor. Due to precast construction, it was possible to initiate internal finishing work in 10 days as soon as the 3rd floor was completed that helped to achieve their target on Day 96, July 9, 2022.