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| Inaugurating a national conference on construction management, Pant said the country had the potential to achieve higher growth levels. |
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| When the Plan panel had suggested an 8 per cent growth rate for the Tenth Plan period (2002-07), there was a lot of scepticism. |
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| But now, 7 per cent to 8 per cent growth had been proved possible and there was no reason why higher growth could not be sustained in the next plan, Pant said. |
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| The country was in a transition phase and needed to work towards accelerated growth to meet social requirements, he added. |
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| The construction industry formed the basis of economic growth. In an era of globalisation, it should work towards better cooperation for the promotion of the industry, not only in the SAARC (South-Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) region, but also in east and south-east Asian countries. |
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| The industry should take advantage of overseas opportunities by identifying mutually beneficial areas, Pant said, adding that Iraq and Afghanistan offered ample scope for the industry to go beyond the SAARC region. |
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| Stating that the construction industry needed to modernise itself to improve efficiency, Pant said the pace of mechanisation needed to be stepped up to provide critical infrastructure for economic development. |
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| Citing the example of national highway development project, he said that the progress of the mega project has enthused the people as well as entrepreneurs. |
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| It is bound to have cascading effect on the growth of economy. Introduction of mechanisation would lead to improvement in the quality of construction and help in reducing cost and time overruns. |
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| He said that the construction sector had registered the highest growth rate in job creation for the past two decades and was one of the largest employers in the country. |
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| Calling on the sector to maintain a growth rate which could at least neutralise the impact of modernisation on job creation, he said that in order to ensure satisfactory growth rate in the sector, skill development had to be an on-going process and that both the public and private sectors needed to pool their resources in reaching the objective. |
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