PRATAP PADODE, Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director, ASAPP Media, highlights the need for skill development and rebuilding India. ´When CW was conceptualised in 2003, apart from L&T and Jaiprakash, most companies were under Rs 1,000 crore. Asian Paints was at Rs 1,400 crore and today it is Rs 12,500 crore. Tata Steel was at Rs 6,700 crore; today it is at Rs 174,000 crore. The total contracting industry was Rs 18,000 crore, which is the turnover of Punj Lloyd and ACC today. Nearly Rs 100,000 crore of turnover has been added in 12 years. Our economy has quad-tripled from $500 billion to $2 trillion and is all set to cross $3 trillion in 2019 surpassing Russia, Italy and Brazil, making India the world´s seventh largest. We, at CW, have highlighted some neglected issues. In 2005, we reported that we are woefully short of 2.6 crore skilled workers and followed this by incisive reports on training capacities built each year. Now, the total expected shortfall of skilled labour, according to a FICCI survey, will be a staggering 16.77 crore in 2020-22. The need for training and skill development is so acute that despite L&T´s pioneering work for two decades, we need 50 more L&Ts to secure us from this roadblock. We also emphasised that only 20 per cent of workers were registered with welfare boards across the country. Of the total collection of cess, only 13 per cent was spent on labour welfare while Rs 10,000 crore remained unused. This year, we laid stress on the predicament of the workers in the Gulf. Reports suggested that the government has demanded enhanced remuneration for Indian construction workers in the Gulf countries. The new era of the new government feels better. Our 'CW Man of the Year´ Anil Swarup, Secretary, Ministry of Coal, is a man of distinction. With his thought clarity and apolitical attitude, he removed logjams from infra projects and is the best man to turn our coal into gold. As our Nobel winner Kailash Satyarthi said, India is the land of 100 problems, but it is the mother of a billion solutions. At ASAPP, our endeavour is nation building. Our PM´s team is engineering the rebuilding of India. Let us together ´Wake India´ and ´Make India´