India needs more Women Town planners – Meenakshi Lekhi
India 30 August 2016: Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organized its 6th edition of Regional Conference on Infrastructure Management on 30 August 2016 at ITC Maurya Hotel, Sardar Patel Marg, New Delhi.
Ms Meenakshi Lekhi, Chairperson, Parliamentary Standing Committee of Lok Sabha on Privileges, and; Member, Parliamentary Standing Committee of Lok Sabha on Urban Development said that “We need more women town planners in India as they bring a different perspective to infrastructure management.” She said that Delhi has seen a rise in flyovers in the past few years and now Delhi needs elevated ring roads which will increase the surface area for traffic management.” She said that “DDA has come up with a real time diary which will help the Government in curbing corruption.” On another note, she said that “The central government will fund only those projects which are more than 50% complete in order to ensure that the projects are completed timely and efficiently as there are many examples where the center has disbursed money and the state has not utilized that money for infrastructure development”
Mr Madhav B Shriram, Chairman - Delhi State, Confederation of Indian Industry, and; Deputy Managing Director, DCM Shriram Industries Limited said that efficient collaboration is critical in today’s technology driven workspaces. He further said “Managing and allocating office workspace is a constant challenge for both public and private organizations. This challenge exists because organizations have to meet functional space demands using limited resources.”
Mr Rahul Chaudhry, Vice Chairman - Delhi State, Confederation of Indian Industry, and; Chief Executive, Servel India Private Limited said that “Connaught place was planned and built decades ago with the vision of the future. Delhi’s town planners have taken a different and a dynamic approach towards Infrastructure development in the past few years. We need to plan our infrastructure taking in account the population growth and traffic for the decades to come and not just what is today”
Mr Anshuman Magazine, Co-Chairman, CII National Committee on Real Estate and Housing; and; Chairman, India & South East Asia, CBRE, “To maximise an organization’s efficiency and employee productivity, it is essential for today’s corporates to tie their expansion strategies with their overall corporate strategies. This needs to be done without hampering staff productivity and performance. In today’s scenario, organizations are under pressure to drive down costs by increasing the ‘static density’, or the space per sq. ft. dedicated for each workstation. Workplace density and space utilization are becoming critical in helping corporate occupiers inform workplace and real estate decisions and managing their real estate as a strategic asset.” He further added, “A recent CBRE report found that the range of underutilized space in the key metro cities ranges between 27% to 58%, which presents organizations with an opportunity to make changes in their existing physical workspace to maximize work space utilization and drive down cost. It is time for organizations to take stock of the current situation, rethink density, utilization and work towards effectively managing the available space and build a business case for change. This will not only help save cost but help in improving business and employee performance.”