Top guns bag Construction World Global Awards 2012

The 10th Construction World Global Awards 2012 , which was held at the Lalit hotel in New Delhi on Wednesday, has honoured the excellence in construction industry.

While the Construction World Woman of the Year award went to Vinita Singhania, MD of JK Lakshmi Cement, the Top International Contractors in India awards were won by Dongfang Electric, Leighton and Shimizu. National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) was honoured for 50 years of its fruitful service to its sector. 

Trophies were presented to fastest growing and the largest companies in construction, construction material manufacturing and construction equipment.

Organised by Construction World magazine, the function was held amidst the presence of 250 top practitioners and mediapersons. Speaking after given away the awards, Dr. Sen, Principal Advisor, Planning Commission, Government of India, lauded the winning companies, who, he said  have been “contributing 80% of the industry’s GDP.”

Dr. Sen, also said, "As regards the employment of workmen, construction industry would be employing at least 30 million of the total 48 million employed totally in all sectors in our country."

Dr. Sen was joined on stage by Raghav Chandra, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Saidbeg Saidov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Embassy of Tajikistan, Williams Nkurunziza, High Commissioner, Embassy of Rwanda and Tudor Van Hampton, Deputy Editor of ENR, along with Prof. Atul Tandan, Chairman, ASAPP Media and the awards organizer Pratap Vijay Padode, Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director of ASAPP Media, who is also the President of FIRST Infocentre, an academic trust. 

The panel of jury includes  Anuj Puri, Chairman & Country Head, Jones Lang LaSalle,  Meghraj 
Daksesh Parikh, Executive Editor, Business India,  JD Stuart Macaskie, Project Director, Masters Management Consultants,  Manikkan Sangameswaran, President-Infrastructure, ICICI Venture Funds Mangement,  Mukund Sapre, IL&FS Transportation, Rakesh Sharma, MD, Tishman Speyer India,  Sanjay Palve, Group President & Senior MD – Corporate Finance, Yes Bank and Sunil Damania, an investment expert.

THE WINNERS

Fastest Growing Cement Company - Chettinad Cement

Largest Cement Company -Ultratech Cement

Fastest Growing Paint Company -Berger Paints

Largest Paint Company -Asian Paints

Fastest Growing Steel Company -Jindal Steel & Power

Largest Steel Capacity Company in India -SAIL

Largest Steel Company - Tata Steel

Fastest Growing Construction Equipment Company -Action Construction Equipment

Fastest Growing Equipment Company (Allied Equipment) -Mcnally Bharat Engg Co

Largest Construction Equipment Company -J C B India

Largest & Most Profitable Construction Company -Larsen & Toubro

Fastest Growing Construction Company (Small Category) -Technofab Engineering

Fastest Growing Construction Company (MediumCategory) -Supreme Infrastructure

Fastest Growing Construction Company (Large Category) -Ramky Infrastructure

Top 10 Most Admired Companies in India - Afcons Infrastructure, Gammon India, HCC, Engineers India, Essar Projects, L&T, Nagarjuna, Punj Lloyd, Reliance Infrastructure and Tata Projects.

Major Multi-Crore Real Estate Scams in India

Bangalore: The real estate segment got scams too. Corruption has become an unresolved issue in India that has been spread throughout the country like a deadly plague hindering the country’s growth. We have come across many corruption cases that made headlines and caught our attention because of its multi-crore involvement. Coalgate scam is the most recent followed by 2G scams, Commonwealth games scam and many more. While Adarsh Housing Society Scam is known to be one of the biggest scams in real estate, below are few of India’s land scams.

Adarsh Housing Society scam

Adarsh Housing Society Scam is the biggest housing scams of Mumbai, the financial capital of India. It is one of the multi-crore housing scam in India. This housing scam started way back in the year 2002 when a request for the construction of housing complex was put forward to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. The request was to allot land for housing complex for “the welfare of serving and retired personnel of the Defence Services," in the city of Mumbai.  Surprisingly, over the period of ten years, top politicians, bureaucrats and military officials have come under the scanner for violating several norms including land-use rules and environmental laws and misusing the houses originally built for martyrs' widows and Kargil heroes. In fact, these aforementioned figures have pounced on flats in this property at low prices, which is located in South Mumbai’s Colaba area in prime defence land.

"The episode of Adarsh Co-operative Housing Society reveals how a group of select officials, placed in key posts, could subvert rules and regulations in order to grab prime government land- a public property- for personal benefit,” according to the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India to the President of India in 2011.

 

Noida land scam

Noida land scam is another multi-crore real estate fraud took place in India. In this scam, top scientists of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) have transferred the government land worth around 70 crore to the name of a private group to develop society flats by spending just a small part of its actual market value.

Originally Noida land scam started way back in March 1992 when the tract of government land was allotted to develop staff quarters for ICMR affiliated ICPO (Institute of Cytology and Preventive Oncology) at sector 39. The ICPO spend around 2 crore to get possession of the land but failed to develop the quarters till March 2006, due to which the penalty amounted to almost 2.28 crore. And from this stage, it is to be believed that officials started using the plot of land for different purpose.  

The plot of land that came under scanner spans over 2.5 acres which is around 9,712.62 square meters and the society building is located on Noida’s prime location where the sector 32 Metro station and Noida City Centre is nearby.

Emaar Properties scam

The alleged scam started back in 2003 when Dubai-based real estate group Emaar Properties merged with the government run Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC). Under the partnership clause, 75 percent of equity granted to Emaar Properties and the rest percentage to the APIIC. The actual plan was to develop an ultra-luxury township including villas, golf course and a hotel on 535 acres of land in Gachibowli. But in 2006, another Dubai-based infrastructure company, MGF got involved in the partnership and due to which the stake of APIIC reduced to 6.5 percent. However, during this time BP Acharya was serving as the Managing Director of APIIC and allowed the revised terms rather than obtaining clearance from government. CBI suspected that the new partnership helped Emaar-MGF to gain excessive benefit of 2500 crore.

Many top-notch figures including politicians and celebrities had came under CBI scanner for buying villas sold at 5000 per square yard, whereas the actual market value was no less than 60,000 per square yard. This had brought huge loss to the government, with NDTV inputs.

Cooperative group housing scheme Scam

In the Rangmahal cooperative group housing scheme (CGHS) scam of 4000 crore, 11 people were reported to be allegedly involved in the corruption scam that included seven public servants.  The public servants who were found to be convicted include ex-Registrar Cooperative Societies Narayan Diwakar-the key player of this scam, Jt Registrar Jasbeer Singh, Assistant Registrar (Audit) Jitender Sharma, Assistant Registrar Ramesh Chandra, Dealing Assistant Rakesh Kumar and Inspector RCS Faiz Mohd and one P K Thirvani. Also, these people were declared guilty of criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code, cheating, forgery and for under the Prevention of Corruption Act, reports PTI.

 The Cooperative group housing scheme Scam started when the plot was fraudulently allotted by the convicts for Rangmahal CGHS in Pitampura area of North West Delhi.

According to CBI, people who are involved in CGHS case, "on the basis of forged and false documents" and "also successfully misrepresented the DDA and induced it to allot huge land on subsidised rates to the society" reports Indian Express.

Karnataka Wakf Board Land Scam  

Karnataka Wakf Board Land Scam is one among the named scandals in India. Karnataka Wakf Board Land Scam involved the alleged misappropriation of 200, 000 crore in Indian property funds and the scam is unearthed by Karnataka State Minorities Commission’s report that brought out in 2012.

Karnataka State Minorities Commission’s chairman, Anwar Manippady submitted a report to the Chief Minister of the state, D.V. Sadananda Gowda in March 2012, suspected that Karnataka Wakf Board controlled land of 27,000 acres has been misappropriated or allocated illicitly. Besides, the estimated value of the land is 2 lakh-crore.

The Muslim charitable trust, Karnataka Wakf Board, manages property that has originally been donated for the poor to utilize. But, the report alleged that the Wakf Board has permitted around 50 percent of its land to be misappropriated by board members and politicians in involvement with the real estate mafia for a fraction of its actual market value.

CREDAI asked to survey unsold flats across India

MUMBAI: The Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India (CREDAI) has been asked by the government to prepare a list of unsold flats across India so that the government can decide upon unlocking their value for the benefit of builders who are allegedly sitting on the large pile of unsold inventory.

Union secretary for financial services D K Mittal at a joint meeting of Indian Bankers Association and CREDAI has asked the apex body of developers to conduct a survey of unsold housing stock across the country.

Mittal's move followed concerns voiced by finance minister P Chidambaram recently to bankers that developers were sitting on five lakh unsold flats which they are neither able to sell at the prevailing high prices nor are they allowing others to buy by lowering the prices, a media report said. Though they have challenged the FM's remark, CREDAI will be appointing an independent research agency to carry out the survey, it said.

It is believed that in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai area alone there are more than 80000 to one lakh housing units lying unsold and developers are not ready to reduce the price to clear the inventory.

The Finance Ministar has recently told in a meeting that developers across India are sitting on unsold flats, not ready to reduce the price and clear inventory, thereby causing strain to the economy.

According to CREDAI president Lalit Kumar Jain, “A developer when he announces a 7,000 unit township, puts only 400 to 500 units on sale. None of these 7,000 units are ready stock and so, cannot said to be available for sale as construed by the government. They (banks and government) are very keen to reduce property prices and asked for our commitment on this.''

The Union Secretary has met developers and bankers thrice to understand the issues of housing sector and developers' financing problems. At the meeting, CREDAI also reiterated its stance that limitation on land availability for realty projects and restrictions on floor space index also need to be addressed to increase housing supply and price rationalization, a TOI report said.

Bankers voiced concern at the ‘knotty’ issue of project approval process and urged the secretary to address this issue at the various state government levels. In the meeting, Mittal also asked the commercial banks to focus on funding partially completed projects on a priority basis and development of projects in small towns.

Construction industry suffers due to Bihar's economic growth?

It seems Bihar’s ‘fast’ economic growth under the leadership of visionary Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has not gone down well with some of the corporate and industry heads who link the present labour crisis in construction industry to the Bihar’s booming economy.

If Bihar has been providing cheap labour all along to the construction industry, it can be interpreted that construction companies across India have been ‘exploiting’ the migrant labourers by paying a paltry sum. It is highly deplorable that construction companies are now listing labour crisis as one of the reasons for the steep hike in home prices.

The developers, instead of blaming the spurt in labour charges, should think of automation options available in the market, which not only reduces the construction cost but also helps to complete the projects before schedule.

Former head of market regulator SEBI CB Bhave has recently surprised the audience in Londan by saying that Bihar, under Nitish Kumar,  is doing 'very well', but the state's development has led to labour shortages hurting India's construction industry. Due to many new job opportunities and improved conditions in Bihar, not many in the state now migrate to other states in search of livelihood.

“This is particularly affecting the construction industry adversely,” Bhave said at a high profile seminar of top business and financial leaders from India and London, reports PTI.

The seminar, organised by the City of London, discussed various issues concerning India's economy - including last week's reforms such as hike in diesel prices, changes in rules to allow FDI in aviation and multi-brand retail sectors - but quite a few in the audience were surprised at the Bihar example.

"The construction industry is suffering from serious labour shortage. For years, the industry depended on labourers from Bihar, but now when they take leave and go home, 70 per cent do not return to work on construction projects in other states," Bhave said.

Not only the reforms in Bihar which make people comfortable at their home state, the Central government’s sponsored National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which gives people in rural areas 100 days of assured employment in a year, has also arrested people from less developed states migrating to other states in search of jobs. Most these uneducated rural youth generally land up in construction sites as daily wagers.

Apart from Bihar, the construction industry is getting labourers from Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and Uttar Pradesh.

Nasser Munjee, chairman of the Development Credit Bank, also noted the improved conditions in Bihar, particularly in cities, but added that much needed to be done for development to reach rural areas in the state.

On the phenomenon of some states doing much better than others in terms of economic growth and development, Ajay Shah, senior fellow at the Delhi-based National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, said "competitive dynamics" between states in India was yet to emerge.

Jayalalithaa opens world's largest green hotel in Chennai

Honble Chief Minister inaugurated the newly built ITC Grand Chola Hotel in Guindy, Chennai.

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa today inaugurated ITC group's world's largest LEED Platinum certified green hotel 'ITC Grand Chola' here. 

Inspired by the architectural splendour of the Chola Dynasty, the hotel is a 600-room super premium luxury integrated hotel complex with one lakh sq ft  of banqueting and convention facility including a 30,000 sq ft pillar-less ballroom. 

Having 10 signature restaurants, the hotel provides the visitors a 23,000 sq ft Kaya Kalp, the royal spa. The hotel is 100% powered by renewable energy. 

The hotel embodies the highest standards in Indian hospitality balanced with elegant restraint in a prime property with a distinct personality. The ITC Grand Chola has 522 rooms and 78 luxuriously appointed serviced apartments. Its 600 spacious guest rooms, suites and luxury serviced apartments, are the epitome of Indian grace and style, expertly appointed with thoughtful amenities. It exceeds the needs of both the business traveller as well as the bespoke requirements of the destination connoisseur. 

Ideal Location

The delights of this luxurious hotel are multifarious. As a fascinating throwback to a vibrant period in Indian history, ITC Grand Chola stands for timeless beauty and luxury. Built in the midst of the business hub of Guindy and located on Mount Road, ITC Grand Chola in Chennai is within close proximity to many key areas of Chennai and is just 8 km away from the domestic and international airport. This luxury hotel which exceeds the grandeur of existing 5-star hotels in Chennai is also an ideal destination for both business and leisure sojourns. The well-connected roads and transportation system enable easy accessibility to commercial points and key areas in the city.  

Refined Artistry

Towering facades and flowing architecture are leaves taken from the aesthetics of the Cholas, an ancient dynasty that made a deep impact on many regions within and outside of this country. From the shores of the Bay of Bengal to that of South Asian borders of Malaysia, China and Sri Lanka among others, the Cholas have influenced art, architecture and culture from their time to now. Impeccably carved temples, bronze sculptures of unparalleled beauty and keen attention to detail is aesthetics that continue to influence the visitors.