Steel buildings Dunara’s forte

Hiran H. Senewiratne

The pre-fabricated steel or turnkey type buildings will be the future in the construction industry with the ever-increasing building materials cost and the time consuming factor.

Dunara Construction, a 100 per cent local company has entered into this business in a prominent way to play a

 decisive role in the country’s construction industry, its Managing Director Prasanna Alwis said.

Pre-fabricated steel buildings are commonly seen in many developed countries for the construction of factories, stores, warehouses, multi houses, and aircraft hangars.

“All our projects include planning, designing with professionally qualified and experienced in-house staff,” Alwis said.

The company imports raw materials (steel planks) from other countries and fixes them with nuts and bolts or turnkey basis to erect any structure with a lesser time and cost, Alwis said. Dunara Construction is one of the few steel construction companies that provides total solution for the construction industry’s needs in the country.

These steel buildings are durable, cost effective, quick assembling is guaranteed for life.

Some companies import pre-fabricated structures/ buildings from other countries which was a very costly process. But now they import only steel plank and fixed it with bolts and nuts. The other advantage it is very easy to dismantle them,” he said.

According to Alwis construction of a 10,000 square foot steel factory, would take only two months to complete. If the structure is bigger a cost is lesser.

This method could be used to build high rise buildings as well, he said. Where the cost is concerned it is very much competitive and economical for any industry building. The reason is that it is 100 per cent made in Sri Lanka, therefore it has no shipping, port and Customs duty charges.

Alwis said they are the only company in the country to do turn key basis construction work from designing to occupancy. They have now tied up with MAS Holdings to do their projects in the country.

The company was started four years ago and upto now it has completed more than 495,000 square foot of

 work, he said.

Dunara has a workforce of 400 skilled and unskilled personnel. All their employees are being well looked after with free meals, uniforms and accommodation, he said.

Since the company is successful in the country, they are looking at possibilities to penetrate into other countries including Bangladesh, India, Maldives and many more.