Government departments and agencies and private sector have been urged to promote alternative technologies in place of conventional construction technologies to meet the housing demand besides promoting sustainable construction, by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation.After inaugurating ‘HPL Housing Technology Park’ here today, Minister of HUPA Shri M.Venakaiah Naidu said “Speedy, Safe and Sustainable construction using prefabricated alternative technologies is the need of the hour to meet the targets under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and programmes of State Governments. Several such technologies validated by official technical agencies are now available and need to be scaled up in use”.Shri Naidu further said that with increase in demand, prefabricated construction technologies would become even more cost effective and they need to be promoted in a big way. He said that about two crore dwelling units are to be built in urban areas and about four crore units in rural areas to enable housing for economically weaker sections and low income groups. He said that government is taking several measures to popularize these technologies. These technologies are now being used in big housing projects and need to be adopted for individual and small scale housing projects, he said.
Minister of State for HUPA Shri Rao Inderjit Singh urged government departments like Defence, Railways and PSU to promote such technologies in a big wary.Dr.Nandita Chatterjee, Secertary(HUPA) informed that the Ministry of HUPA is in talks with the Ministry of Defence for building two lakh houses with alternative technologies for Paramilitary forces. She also said that construction of 37,500 such houses is being planned in Mumbai after a successful pilot project of 200 houses. Demonstration projects have been executed in different zones of the country and several States like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana and Maharashtra have shown keen interest in alternative construction technologies. CPWD has already come out with Schedule of Rates for three such technologies and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) would soon include these technologies in the National Building Code (NBC).Speaking to media persons, Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Prefab Limited Shri Rajesh Goyal said that prefabricated technologies are as good as conventional technologies in terms of strength and durability and even better in several respects like quality and finish, speed of construction and would be more cost effective when production increases. He said that perception of users needs to be changed to make them adopt these technologies. Private sector is now showing considerable interest in these technologies, he stated.HPL has developed the Housing Technology Park in Jangpura, New Delhi for demonstration and promotion of these technologies. Eleven houses built with different alternative technologies are on show for awareness generation.