New Delhi, 12 October 2023: The 21st Construction World Global Awards, with panache, brought together top construction industry leaders, experts and policymakers in Delhi. Hosted by infrastructure think-tank FIRST Construction Council, and as a part of the India Construction Festival, this landmark event at Shangri-La Eros Hotel, New Delhi, united industry stakeholders for three consecutive star-studded events.

The event began with an auspicious lamp-lighting ceremony and dignitaries who lit the lamp were Pratap Padode, Founder and President, FIRST Construction Council, Falguni Padode, Co-Founder and Group Managing Editor, ASAPP Info Global Group, Lieutenant General Arvind Walia, Engineer-in-Chief, Indian Armed Forces, AAV Ranga Raju, Managing Director, NCC, Ratnesh Sinha, BKT, and Hardik Agarwal, Director, DRAIPL.

Sharing the current and future industry perspective, Pratap Padode, Founder and President, FIRST Construction Council said, “As of July 2023, rural road length of 742,398 km road length was constructed at a rate of 91 km per day at an expenditure of Rs 3.06 trillion, which is much ahead of 80 km per day in March 2014 – which has gone up by three times.” To highlight the government’s commitment to infrastructure investments, he highlighted how the government capex was expected to reach 4.9 per cent of GDP in FY24 as compared to 1.7 per cent in FY14.

The jury members, comprising industry leaders and analysts, who played a crucial role in selecting the winners from the various categories are: Dr Anil Kashyap, Director General, NICMAR; Akhil Gupta, CEO and Executive Director, Shapoorji Pallonji; Jagannarayan Padmanabhan, Senior Director – Transport, Logistics and Mobility, CRISIL; Maneesh Yadav, MD and CEO, ASK Financial Holding; Bharat Parekh, Executive Director, CLSA; Vijay Agrawal, Director, Equirus; Suneet Maheshwari, Founder and Managing Partner, Udvik Infrastructure; Professor Albert Thomas Assistant Professor, IIT Bombay; B R Parthasarathy, Senior Vice President, Tata Consulting Engineers and Anup Mathew, Senior VP and Business Head, Godrej Construction.

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ENR Awards

The prestigious “Construction World - Person of the Year (Private Sector) Award” was the most highly awaited moment of the entire day and the award went to AAV Ranga Raju, Managing Director, NCC.

Another significant event was unveiling of the 18th Anniversary issue of 'Infrastructure Today' magazine by the esteemed jury members. A collector’s item in view of a skilling update from 23 industry heads, it also contained valuable inputs as to how various sectors of the industry were performing.

The Guest of Honour, Lieutenant General Arvind Walia, Engineer-in-Chief, Indian Armed Forces, said, “The convergence of automation, artificial intelligence, robotics and other cutting-edge technologies are reshaping every aspect of construction – right from concept and design to execution.” He opined that better representation of women with their empathy, knowledge and their skills would help the construction industry grow better and higher.

Promising to provide valuable data to industry professionals in terms of an information management platform for construction projects, Tanveer Padode, Head, Digital ASAP Info Global Group, unveiled the group’s future plans and said, “We're glad to present to you IMPACCT, which stands for ‘Information Management of Projects awarded, conceptualised, contracted and tendered’. From December 1, you'll have all this information as to what's happening, where, who's the project manager, who's the person in charge, how do I get in touch with this person? We'll help you with procurement and help you find professionals and consultants for whichever sectors - all at the click of a button.”  

Summing up the event, Pratap Padode said it was, akin to Chandrayaan, ‘a Star-studded event’.