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ASAPP Media Information Group recently bagged two awards at the 14th CIDC Annual Day and the 2nd Vishwakarma Awards. Construction World, the company's flagship magazine was pronounced has the Best Construction News Magazine and Pratap Vijay Padode, the Editor-in-Chief, was adjudged the Best Journalist. The event was held on March 7, 2010 in New Delhi. It was organised by Construction Industry Development Council and, felicitated individuals and organisations for their immense and outstanding contribution to the construction industry and infrastructure development. Speaking on the occasion Dr C Rangarajan, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister highlighted the contribution of the construction sector to the building of physical infrastructure in the country. “The importance of this sector to the economy is reflected in the Rs 3.5 lakh crore that it contributed to the GDP in 2009-10 (at constant prices),' he said. 'In the past decade the share of the construction sector in the GDP has gone up by two percentage points, increasing from about 6.0 per cent in 1999-00 to 8 per cent in 2009-10. With its double digit growth rate from 2003-04 to 2007-08, the construction sector was an important driver of the Indian growth story in this decade. However, the financial crisis and the deceleration in the industrial sector caused a major slowdown and the growth rate dropped from 10 per cent in 2007-08 to 5.9 per cent in 2008-09. Luckily the growth rate has picked up and I expect that by 2011-12 the sector could get back to the previously experienced double digit growth rate.� Rangarajan also stressed upon employment generation potential of the sector. “The other important characteristic of this sector is its large employment generation potential. It has been estimated that in the Eleventh Plan period, the demand for construction manpower will grow at 8-9 per cent i.e an annual accretion of 25 lakh people,� he said. “Capacity building and increase in productivity are crucial to the construction sector if it is to continue on a high growth path. Financing of infrastructure projects can emerge as a potential constraint, as long term financing and instruments have been in scarce supply. PPP projects have so far been largely financed domestically using plain vanilla debt. Commercial banks are the major source of debt with generally short tenure. To overcome this Government of India had set up the India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd (IIFCL) in 2006 to enable funding of longer tenure debt. In addition, the 'takeout financing scheme' announced in the budget is expected to encourage banks and other commercial lending institutions to advance more loans towards infrastructure projects having a long gestation period.' Rangarajan added. “In short the construction sector must focus on improving productivity through introduction of efficient technologies, focus on R&D for identification of appropriate and alternate materials to reduce cost of construction, develop a national plan for human resource development, and accord greater importance to safety in construction activities,� concluded Rangarajan. ASAPP Media has been continuously focusing on introduction of new technologies. Infact in 2009, Construction World, the group's flagship magazine, was awarded with first prize at the Asian Multimedia Publishing Awards 2009 in the 'Multimedia Strategy and Business Model' category.