Lift kara de

If the Punjab farmer shifting his house to dodge highway expansion is baffling you, meet members of an industry, with its nerve centre in Haryana, that has been lifting and shifting entire buildings across India for 30 years

Some would say that the script of Arjun Kapoor-starrer Sardar ka Grandson came to life when earlier this month, a farmer in Punjab began moving his house by 500 feet, a little each day, using wheels. Sukhwinder Singh Sukhi’s decision to move his dream home built as recently as 2019 at the cost of Rs 1.5 crore in Roshanwala village of Sangrur, Punjab, left everyone marvelling and asking, “How!” Tourists are also believed to have taken a detour to see the marvel at work.

Balwan Sisodia of Yamuna Nagar tells mid-day matter of factly, that the lifting-and-shifting industry has existed since the 1990s. “It was 30 years ago that the first structure was lifted in India. And a decade or so after, a temple was moved. Both were done by late Mamchand Chouhan of Yamuna Nagar in Haryana,” Sisodia, 38, says. He entered the business of house lifting, moving and tilting in 2004. Ever since, he claims he has lifted over 500 buildings and moved a handful. Like him, most contractors involved in this business hail from Haryana. Yamuna Nagar, they say, is the birthplace of the technology.

Surender Kumar of Mamchand House Uplifting Pvt Ltd says his firm took on the challenging task of shifting an 800-year-old temple in Tamil Nadu belonging to the Chola period. Pics Courtesy/Surender Kumar

Sushil Sisodia, 39, is another contractor mid-day spoke to, who claims to have successfully completed several thousand projects. This writer couldn’t verify his claim. It takes anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months to lift and shift a ready structure, using mechanical and hydraulic jacks, otherwise used to lift trucks. Some also rely on steel girders or beams that go under the structure, and are used to pull. The technique, he says, hasn’t changed in the last many years although new players have emerged. When this writer asks Sushil to explain the basis for the technology, he says, “There is no theory that you can read to understand how it is done. We have been in the business for long and it is something we have experimented with and learnt on the field.”

Sushil does, however, share that it’s critical that the weight of the building and the quality of construction is assessed. “Based on the weight, which we measure according to the building’s size, construction materials and height, we calculate the number of jacks that are required for the job. For a three-storey building, that has each floor spread across 2,000 sq ft, we may need to employ 450 to 500 jacks,” says Sushil, who lists among his notable works lifting a 60-year-old ancestral home in Coimbatore, weighing 400 tonne. He has also shifted a 70-year-old temple in Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu by 73 feet to enable the widening of an adjoining road. This was in 2015. This feat saw his firm, TDBD Engg Works Pvt Ltd enter the Limca Book of Records. In 2013, the firm shifted a 35-year-old three storey structure weighing 400 tonne by 45 feet in Coimbatore in 22 days. This bagged him his debut Limca mention.

Vikas Sisodia, Surender Kumar, Sneha Gurjar and Balwan Sisodia

How much does this herculean effort cost? It depends, says Sushil. The average cost is Rs 200-Rs 250 for every square foot shifted and lifted.

For a developing nation like India, where infrastructure projects are widespread, the shifting industry has played an active role. One of the most common reasons for lifting a structure is road elevation. If not done, water enters the building. When it rains, there is likely to be a struggle with drainage because the house sits below the level at which sewage pipelines are laid. Other reasons include Vastu considerations, the building of highways and expressways, cementing an old foundation, and raising the height of a home in flood-prone areas, says Balwan. 

“If a house is facing a direction which isn’t good according to Vastu, we lift the house and rotate it,” says Vikas Sisodia, 49, who runs Shri Ram Building Lifting Works Pvt Ltd in Kurukshetra, Haryana. “The shifting service costs a couple of lakhs. So, customers prefer opting for it instead of bringing down a structure completely and rebuilding it, especially if the compensation being offered by the authorities is insufficient.” It was Vikas’ grandfather late Atma Ram, who he says, cracked the technique way back in 1974 and the family has carried the business forward ever since.

A temple built in honour of late contractor Mamchand Chouhan, who his grandson Surender Kumar claims “invented” the shifting technology, in Teen Ka Majra, Yamuna Nagar

Shifting also plays an important role when it comes to religious structures because of the sentiments attached to them. “I have shifted over 400 temples across various parts of Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Bihar and Haryana, when they have come in the way of development projects. It [shifting religious structures] is one job where I don’t prioritise profit. If I am able to cover the cost, I go ahead. It’s a gesture for the community,” says Sushil.  

Shifting of temples is such big business that for Mamchand House Uplifting Pvt Ltd, a firm run by Surender Kumar, 31, the grandson of late Mamchand Chouhan, it has a dedicated vertical. “Elevating a temple to an appropriate height can be easy but shifting an entire existing structure involve twists and turns. Securing its asceticism from any damage is the most significant factor for us,” reads a note on the company’s website. 

Based on the weight of the structure, size and height, the firm calculates the number of mechanical and hydraulic jacks that will be employed. Pic Courtesy/Vikas Sisodia

Over a phone call, Kumar says that his company lifted an 800-year-old temple in Tamil Nadu that belonged to the Chola period, recently. “We had to lift it and then fortify the foundation to make it stronger,” says Kumar, adding that they first secured the temple structure to preserve its aesthetic value. “It was a heavy structure, weighing 200 tonne. But because it was such an old structure, its foundation didn’t have the strength [to survive the movement]. It was a tricky task. It was after securing the structure that we applied the jacks.”

Most contractors credit Mamchand Chouhan for the shifting technique. “He was a contractor,” says Kumar. “There was a small puliya [bridge] in his hometown which needed to be lifted to allow the passage of drainage water. He decided to take it up using mechanical jacks and when he was successful, he took on smaller subsequent projects. In fact, there is a temple that is dedicated to him in Yamuna Nagar where his students come and offer gratitude,” Kumar shares.

When we discuss the moving of ancient heritage structures with Mumbai-based conservation architect Vikas Dilawari, he says he would advice against it. “Unless, it is being done to serve a larger good, like it was done in Egypt in the 1960s when an ancient temple complex was dismantled and rebuilt on a higher hill to make way for the Aswan High Dam. There are some relevant examples around the Krishna river in India too,” adds Dilawari, who has restored several at-risk monuments in Mumbai, and buildings of historical importance like the 1855-built Bhau Daji Lad Museum. “One of the most important aspects of conservation is the association of the soil, which is why we don’t encourage it [shifting], but sometimes it is done for the larger good of society or the country. Say, a heritage structure is under threat because of an infrastructural development project, then this technique can be considered. But it is a very complex integrated field and therefore such movement should be done carefully and systematically, in the presence of structural engineers, transport experts, architects, and other stakeholders.” 

Architect Sneha Gurjar is director at CEM Engineers, a firm that has been involved in the designing of leading institutional, industrial and infrastructure projects across the country. “The task of lifting a residential or commercial building is extremely technical and requires precision and a skilled workforce. [Unfortunately] the construction industry in India mostly employs semi-skilled and unskilled manpower,” says Gurjar, raising a concern, “Let’s suppose that you are elevating a house in an area that’s subject to strong winds, earthquake, or other natural hazards. In that case, a design professional should determine whether the elevated house, including its foundation, will be able to withstand the horizontal and vertical forces expected to act on it [after it is moved from its foundation]. Additionally, several factors should be considered, including the structure and condition of the house, the soil conditions at the site, the proposed elevation technique, and the hazards at the spot.”

In Yamuna Nagar, this however doesn’t seem to be too much of a worry. When we ask Kumar who  was present when they lifted what he claims was a Chola period old temple, he said it was done in the presence of one engineer.

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