NIRDPR asks Centre and States to adopt sustainable construction tech for building new government buildings

The National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR) has called upon state and central governments to adopt sustainable construction technologies to construct new government buildings such as offices, schools, anganwadis, panchayat buildings and model Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) 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,” NIRDPR said in a statement on Thursday.

According to NIRDPR, the major advantages is that they are eco-friendly with a green building concept, structures are erected using locally available resources and skills of local people, cost of construction will be 25 – 40% less than that of the cost with conventional construction at that particular place and they are also suitable for disaster-prone locations such as earthquake, cyclone and fire, among others.

NIRDPR’s rural technology park 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. Its mandate is to serve as a skill development center on sustainable housing technologies which will impart knowledge and skills to the engineers and masons.

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.

NIRDPR says conventional construction consumes enormous amounts of resources such as steel, cement, paint and energy, apart from the generation of over 80% of greenhouse gas emissions to produce steel, cement, bricks and lime. The very high quantities of use of bricks lead to depletion of fertile top soils of the agricultural lands,” it said.

“It is in this context that use of sustainable building technologies can be beneficial to address the climate change and the depletion of precious natural resources. Also, there is a considerable scope for reducing the massive energy requirements in the housing domain by using simple and cost-efficient sustainable housing technologies,” Ramesh Sakthivel, associate professor and head, centre for innovations and appropriate technology, NIRDPR, said.