The conclave has seen a gathering of around 500 professionals from both Govt. & Pvt. Organizations from all over Assam and Meghalaya. The subjects for the lecture had been selected on the basis of the response generated from eminent engineers from the North East region.

Eminent guest speakers, Dr. Swami Saran and Dr. D.K Paul, Earthquake Engg. Deptt., I.I.T. Roorkee, provided useful and basic information on the general concepts of earthquake resistant design.

Dr. D.K Paul, the Head, Centre of Excellence in Disaster Mitigation and Management, I.I.T Roorkee who is also the President of the Indian Society of Earthquake Technology (ISET) dwelled mostly and extensively on “Earthquake Resistant Structures”

Dr. Paul said, “Experience in past earthquakes has demonstrated that many common buildings and typical methods of construction lack basic resistance to earthquake forces. But, in most cases this resistance can be achieved by following some simple, inexpensive principles of good building construction practice. By adhering to these simple rules life threatening collapses could be prevented, and minimise subsequent damages to repairable proportions”.

The choice of site for a building from the seismic point of view is very important , and Dr. Swami Saran, Professor Emeritus, stated, “The bearing capacity of foundation soil is also very important because infrastructure has to be constructed on firm soil, hence appropriate soil investigations should be carried out to establish the allowable bearing capacity and nature of soil. Weak soil must be avoided or compacted to improve it so as to qualify as firm or soft”.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Sajjan Bhajanka, Chairman, Star Cement said, “We at the Star Cement are committed to provide quality cement to the customer. We are going to enhance our annual production capacity from 1 million tons to 4 million tons within a period of 2 years.”

Mr. Jyoti Agarwal, Vice President, Star Cement said, “At Star cement we have always believed in value adding to the lives of the people. The Star Tech started in 2008, with this very objective and encouraged by its response we are carrying it forward. Today we have the ultimate authority on disaster management as guest speakers and it will be our endeavour to bring many more prominent speakers to Star Tech in the years to come.”