Mumbai: Three years after opening its maiden campus in Noida, RICS School of Built Environment, Amity University (RICS SBE), a collaboration between RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors), a global professional body for qualifications and standards in land, property, construction and associated environment issues and Amity University, announced the launch of its second campus in the country.
RICS SBE Mumbai will be located within the campus of Amity University at Panvel, Mumbai and will offer 3 years BBA in Real Estate and Urban Infrastructure, 2 years MBA in Real Estate and Urban Infrastructure and 2 year MBA in Construction Project Management courses starting July 2017. The school will be headed by Prof. Jagadish K Math as the Dean of RICS SBE, Mumbai; Amol Shimpi, formerly with HCC Real Estate, joins the management as Associate Dean and Director, School of Real Estate, RICS SBE, Mumbai.
The announcement was done by Dr Sean Tompkins, Global CEO, RICS and Dr Aseem Chauhan, Chancellor, Amity University in the presence of Mr Sachin Sandhir, Global Managing Director – Emerging Business RICS.
Presently, the Noida campus attracts 50% of students from South & West regions, indicating growing inclination of young talent in these regions towards the real estate and construction sector, and willingness to shift geographic base for specialized education. The first batch in Mumbai will start with 200 students. Together with Noida (which has already educated 1,500 students) and Mumbai campus, RICS SBE seeks to provide education to 10,000 students over the next five years.
Dr Sean Tompkins, Global CEO, RICS said, “I am extremely pleased at the fast growth that RICS has seen in India over the last eight years. This is a clear indication of the direction in which the real estate market is also moving where we are seeing a need for qualified and accredited professionals. Our aim with the school is to ensure that we not only prepare quality professionals to specialize in various business aspects of the real estate and construction sector including financing, facility and property management, project management, contract management, but also help in streamlining what is perceived as a rather unorganized and fragmented industry in India. It is encouraging that students are looking at real estate as a career possibility.”
Real estate and construction sector has the biggest shortfall of skilled manpower in the country. An earlier study by RICS (2011) had pointed out that by 2020, the Indian realty sector will face an 85% shortage of skilled manpower across professional categories. By 2020, the sector will require 5 million civil engineers, architects and planners, as against the expected supply of less than a million of these professionals.
Speaking about the need for qualified professionals in the real estate sector, Mr Sachin Sandhir, Global Managing Director – Emerging Business, RICS said, “In Indian real estate and construction sector only 2 out of 50 million people employed are qualified and meet the necessary standards resulting in the industry attracting close to 15% talent from other sectors. The slowdown of the last few years has woken up the industry to the fact that it is important to be professionally managed. Real estate companies are looking to hire professionals with technical expertise on par with international standards.”
RICS and Amity University had entered into a collaboration in 2013 to open schools for specialized undergraduate and postgraduate courses in real estate, construction and the infrastructure sector. The school was set up to churn out job ready graduates with specialised knowledge of real estate and construction sectors.
With the launch of the Mumbai campus, RICS School of Built Environment aims to reach out to professionals and students across key cities in West India. Some of the prime markets, in addition to Mumbai, include Pune, Nashik, Nagpur and Aurangabad in Maharashtra, as well as the top cities of Gujarat including Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara.
