Disaster management in India’s construction industry during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

A biological disaster such as Covid-19 is unique in that, unlike other natural disasters, it does not engage the civil engineering community directly. Gaps in managing the pandemic exposed the lack of an institutional memory of handling pandemics, plus a lack of risk perception of ‘fat tail’ events. The impact on the construction sector was significant across the world, but different sections of the sector were affected differently. This paper documents and analyses these issues and concludes with a case study of how small and medium engineering practices endured the pandemic.