The construction fraternity has its focus firmly set: To ensure quality and timely completion of projects. Celebrating this commitment is the raison d'être of the Oscars of the construction industry, the CONSTRUCTION WORLD Global Awards., which seeks to recognise and honour excellence. Part of the India Construction Festival (ICF) (see page XX) once again, the 17th edition of the awards was presented by Apollo Tyres. This year, about 50 awards were presented—for the first time—and companies from across the globe were recognised. Industry call! FY19 was a challenging year for India Inc with issues ranging from a liquidity crunch, rising bad loans and loan defaults (principal as well as interest) to slowing capex, slower automobile growth, delayed or stalled projects, financially unviable projects and an insolvency-like situation for a few large organisations. Yet, a few entities managed to persevere and prevail, posting growth and exhibiting excellence—these were our winners. Also, for the second consecutive year, CONSTRUCTION WORLD associated with New York-based Engineering News-Record, popularly known as ENR, the world’s oldest and largest circulated engineering magazine, to recognise top international design and contracting firms (see page XX). Another highlight of the evening was the launch of the CONSTRUCTION WORLD 23rd Anniversary Edition, a blockbuster issue with the theme ‘Growth 2.0’. In this edition, 23 industry captains share their views on their action plans for growth and success. Indeed, success was the buzzword of the evening where it was raining awards and recognition. In his welcome note, Pratap Padode, Founder & President, FIRST Construction Council, said, “There are cracks appearing everywhere. Even fissures at some spots. We need to spend Rs 100 trillion over the next five years when we have spent just over Rs 75 trillion in the past 10 years. RBI is rapidly losing its headroom in kickstarting the economy as it continues to cut interest rates and inflation continues to be low.” While he cited a list of actions that the Government could take to kick start the economy, he said sustainable economic stimuli is the need of the hour and emphasised the urgent need to rationalise stringency in legal, banking and finance provisions relating to contracts. “Band-aids will not work to repair the cracks. We need a surgical strike here too,” he said. (Read speech on page XX.) Awards and categories The names of India’s Largest and Fastest Growing Construction Companies and Fastest Growing Building Material Companies were unveiled at the event. The jury also selected the CONSTRUCTION WORLD Person of the Year in both the public and private sectors from a list of nominations put forth by the CW editorial team. Elaborating upon the methodology involved in selection, Padode said: “FIRST Construction Council is a non-profit infrastructure think-tank, focused on providing the latest updates on the construction industry in India, and dedicated to promoting its causes and needs. The FIRST methodology uses financial data of the past six years; companies are categorised and ranked as large, medium and small. The jury is then given the authority to refuse voting for a company that, in their view, does not observe corporate governance, business ethics and other best practices. So companies that make it to the winning list are those who have not only scaled the financial model but have been filtered through the eyes of the jury.” FIRST Construction Council has also created another model for Top Challengers, which takes into consideration promising companies—including infrastructure developers, building materials and construction equipment manufacturers—having studied their ability to grow over the previous year despite challenging circumstances. Further, the team from ENR, through its internal methodology, recognised the Top International Design and Contracting Firms. From the winners… Kumar Keshav, Managing Director, Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation, received the trophy for ‘CW Person of the Year 2019’ in the Public Sector, and Chinta Sridhar, Managing Director, Navayuga Engineering Company, received the trophy for ‘CW Person of the Year 2019’ in the Private Sector. (Read their acceptance speeches on page XX.) Speaking on the company’s key achievement in 13 years of business, PS Patel, Chairman, Managing Director & CEO, PSP Projects, pointed out, “We delivering projects right, on time and with quality; as a result, we get repeat orders.” With projects in over 20 countries, S Paramasivan, Managing Director, Afcons Infrastructure, said, “Over the past 10 years, we have been consistently 20 per cent + of our revenue from overseas markets; last year, one-third of our turnover was from the overseas market.” On how the company ensures smooth project execution, Raghu Alluri, Director, NCC Infrastructure Holdings, said, “It is all the 7,000 NCCians, and almost 700 people have been with NCC for more than 25 years. We have completed 40 years in the construction industry and hopefully will be doing many more marquee projects in the country.” For his part, Asim Chakrobarty, Director, Welspun Enterprises, said, “Our focus has majorly been on road infrastructure projects. Being one of the youngest companies to join the infrastructure segment, we would like to successfully identify ourselves in a different way by adopting the latest technology from across the world. And the skill of completing and planning projects on time is what we are focusing on.” Meanwhile, Hardik Agrawal, Director, Dineshchandra R Agrawal Infracon, said, “This is an industry where there are multiple stakeholders involved; hence, there are constant challenges. But the spirit that this entire room boldly showcases is that we work as a team, we overcome challenges and we work on building a nation together.” Vivek Gautam, COO - Core Infrastructure, Tata Projects, said, “The key is in the execution of projects. Project delivery is what matters and this happens when you use the right project management techniques, reduce the wastage part and take care of the bottomline along with the topline. For that, you must have a highly motivated workforce. We are proud of having a well-trained and highly motivated workforce.” And AKS Chauhan, President, GR Infraprojects, said, “At the moment, our focus is on maintaining the company’s current growth and sustaining it. We don’t want to be a short-term player in the industry. We want to develop over a period of may be 50 or 100 years, and that’s what our vision is.” Partners in success The 17th CONSTRUCTION WORLD Global Awards was supported by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India; Sagarmala; Skill India; and National Highways Authority of India. The event was presented by Apollo Tyres. Gold Partners: Dilip Buildcon, Larsen & Toubro, Afcons Infrastructure and APCO Infratech. Silver Partners: Tata Projects, CDE and Dineshchandra R Agrawal Infracon; Associate Partners: Action Construction Equipment, Gayatri Projects and Wirtgen India. Supporting Partners: National Highways Builders Federation, NAREDCO, EEPC India, Project Management Association India, UAE-India Business Council, Smart Cities Council India, Builders Association of India and Project Exports Promotion Council of India. TV Partner: CNN News 18. We thank all our partners for their support and congratulate our winners once again. Read on to learn more about the winners and jury, and experience the magic of the evening!