WB Honours 2013: WASHROOMS AND BEYOND

The venue is set for WB Honours 2013

The third anniversary of the magazine Wb. Washrooms And Beyond was held at Trident, Nariman Point on Saturday, October 5, 2013. Nandita Choudhury from Media Pulse Public Relation had invited me to cover it on my blog.

Gnosis Services Private Ltd. is the company that owns and runs the magazine Wb. Washrooms And Beyond. Ms. Sheital Shetty is the Editor-Publisher of the magazine while Mr. Anurag Yadav is the Consulting Editor.

Awards Presentation

The award function had been organised to recognise the work of prominent personalities and organisations for their excellence in the field of washroom design and development. Innovators, designers and achievers from the industry had gathered together to celebrate the event.

We reached there at 7.30 pm and a fairly good crowd had already arrived. Cocktails and snacks were going strong and everyone appeared to be having a gala time.

The show finally began at 9.30 pm and did not drag for too long. The Emcee went up on stage and immediately began to announce the award winners. Short videos were shown of all the awardees and each one went up on stage to receive the award and certificate for their work.

The awards were as follows:

1. Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation (DTTDC) for ‘Development of Model Public Washrooms by State Government’ - Mr. Nitesh B. Bole, Manager-Sales Mumbai from J.C. Decaux Advertising India Pvt. Ltd. received the award.

2. Department of Industrial Design, SPA, New Delhi for ‘Innovation in Public Washroom Design’ - Prof. Manoj Mathur, Head - Department of Industrial Design, School of Planning and Architecture; along with Prof. Parag Anand, Associate Professor and Ms. Aditi Singh, Faculty, received the Honour on behalf of School of Planning and Architecture.

3. PVR Director’s Cut for ‘Efficient Bathrooms at Building Complexes’ - Mr. Sameep Pathak, Regional General Manager from PVR Ltd. received the award.

4. Delhi International Airport (P) Ltd. for ‘Intelligent Washroom Design at Airports’ - Mr. Manmohan Awasthi, Head – Project Finance, GMR Group received the award.

5. Mr. Sudhakaran Nair, President of the Indian Plumbing Association & Managing Director of Essenco India for ‘Special Contribution to Plumbing Design Development - Mr. B.S.A Narayan, Founder Director, Potential Service Consultants, Technical Advisor for Maple Hydraulics Consultants and Vice-President of the Indian Plumbing Association received the award on behalf of Mr. Nair.

Representatives of Trident Hyderabad receiving the award

6. Fort Chanwa Luni, Jodhpur for ‘Washroom Restoration in Heritage Buildings’ - Mr. K.D. Singh, General Manager, Fort Chanwa, Luni received the award.

7. Trident, Hyderabad for ‘Technology Driven Washrooms’ - Ms. Rabitha Thannooran, Sales Manager; and Mr. Harshad Makasare, Assistant Sales Manager, The Oberoi Group, received the award on behalf of Trident, Hyderabad.

8. Sukoon, The Eco Luxury Houseboat for ‘Green Washrooms’ - Ms. Purnima, Manager-Sales, Sukoon, The Eco-Luxury Houseboat received the award.

Designer of Sukoon, The Eco Luxury Houseboat receiving her award

9. Le Meridien, New Delhi for ‘Unique Interior Design in Hotel Washrooms’ - Mr. Tarun Thakral, COO, Le Meridien, New Delhi received the award.

10. WB Lifetime Achievement Honour 2013 – Mr. S.G. Deolalikar, Chairman Emeritus, Indian Plumbing Association received the award.

All the awardees came together on stage for a photograph. That’s when the 3rd anniversary issue of Wb. Washrooms And Beyond was released by Mr. S.G. Deolalikar.

Also, another magazine, by name Kitchen Ideas, was launched during the event. It’s a quarterly B2B magazine that focuses on kitchen design. Mr. Nadir Cassamo, owner of Leiken was present at the unveiling. He has travelled all the way from Portugal to be a part of the celebration.

Ms. Sheital Shetty spoke on behalf of Gnosis, saying, “It gives us immense pleasure to honour and felicitate individuals and properties that have contributed significantly in the growth and development of the washroom industry. Since the institution of WB Honours, we have observed an increasing realisation of the need to develop efficient, eco friendly and functional washrooms in any facility. WB Honours is recognition for good work done in this field, which is now an important part of any interior design project.”

I had also covered the WB Honours 2011 held at JW Marriott. The food served there was just awesome.

Mr. S.G. Deolalikar gives a speech after receiving The Lifetime Achievement Award

I can’t say the same about the dinner at Trident. While the drinks flowed freely and the starters were not too bad, the dinner was extremely mediocre, while the desserts were worse. They must have spent a huge packet on such a grand function. I felt quite bad that the food was nowhere up to the mark.

The group of award winners along with Ms. Sheital Shetty & Mr. Anurag Yadav as they launched the magazine

I was not too enamoured by the videos either. These were obviously presented by the entrants for the awards. They were in the form of slides with a narration. The sound was pretty unclear while the angles of the pictures in most of the slides were quite bad. The programme would have been way more interesting if they had had good videos of the prize winning entries with a clear narration. I am sure Gnosis will ensure that the issue is taken care of the next time.