NIRDP asks states, centre to adopt sustainable construction

The National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj on Saturday asked state and central governments to adopt sustainable construction technologies to construct new government buildings like offices, schools and model Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Houses across the country.

Construction of government buildings using sustainable housing technologies across every block of the country will help in showcasing their durability and cost effectiveness which is not widely known due to lack of awareness on this aspect, it said in a release here.

The Rural Technology Park of NIRDPR has established a 'National Rural Building Centre (NRBC) to bring together a range of cost-effective construction technologies with a variety of materials and technologies, which blend old and new techniques of construction.

 

The Institute said it has invited Gram Panchayats and functionaries across India to the campus where they can witness and learn about the low-cost sustainable construction technologies which can be further replicated and adapted in their respective villages.

NIRDPR is also actively engaging with engineering and architecture colleges to promote sustainable construction technologies among the students and people living in the surrounding areas of these institutions, it added.

"In India, nearly 80 per cent of the population lives in rural areas in about 5 to 6 lakh villages.

Conventional construction consumes enormous amounts of resources such as steel, cement, paint and energy, apart from the generation of over 80 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions to produce steel, cement, bricks and lime," NIRDPR Associate Professor and Head, Centre for Innovations and Appropriate Technology, Ramesh Sakthivel said.

Stating that use of sustainable building technologies can be beneficial to address the climate change and the depletion of precious natural resources, he said, there is a considerable scope for reducing massive energy requirements in the housing domain by using simple and cost-efficient sustainable housing technologies.

According to the release, there is an urgent need to create mechanisms for production of building materials which are required for promoting sustainable housing such as stabilised mud blocks, conical tiles and fly ash bricks, among others.

As far as the PMAY rural housing programme is concerned, the panchayats play an important role by producing necessary sustainable building materials, not available in the market, through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and Rural Livelihood Missions while creating additional employment opportunities for rural people.

This aspect can be piloted in the model panchayats which are doing exemplary work across the country to arrive at a suitable mechanisms for scaling up, it added.