The 14th Indian Plumbing Conference (IPC) was recently concluded on 1st & 2nd October, 2010, at Swabhumi - The Heritage Plaza, Kolkata. Kolkata was a natural choice for a venue. There is a lot of awareness about better plumbing today, but Kolkata has many more miles to go, many more milestones to achieve. Fortunately for the metro, its civic authorities are on their toes. It was inaugurated by Shri Sovan Chatterjee, the Hon’ble Mayor of Kolkata. It was also graced by the presence of stalwarts such as Shri Harshvardhan Neotia, Shri Prabir Kumar Dutta and Shri Sutanu Ghosh as well as luminaries in the plumbing sector from India and abroad.

This year, the entire event had donned a very dignified look. The topics discussed at the conference were totally relevant to the current scenario in plumbing. The delegates who made the presentations and the discussions that followed were to-the-point and concise. Even the entertainment programmes in the evenings were graced by artists of very high calibre. Thus, this year’s conference takes the event to an altogether new level, being informed by a high degree of professionalism and a no-nonsense approach. Indeed, the aura of the entire two-day conference seemed to reflect how keen the IPA and its associates and partners were in providing a new direction to the plumbing industry in the face of related and highly complex issues.

What’s more, all the technical sessions and the panel discussion were attended by packed-to-capacity audiences. Even as more information trickles in, observers say that students attended the conference in droves. We are on a high, therefore, and very much enthused that the next line of defence against the consequences of poor plumbing practices is already raring to go. And the 14th Indian Plumbing Conference is the perfect practice ground for the GenNext to learn the ropes.