Naidu stresses on need to promote alternative construction technologies

To meet the housing demand in the country, M Venkaiah Naidu, Union Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) Minister, has pitched for promoting alternative technologies in place of conventional construction methods. He has also called for speedy, safe, and sustainable construction to accomplish the government’s mission of 'Housing to All' by 2022.   According to the mminister, 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.   Further, with increase in demand, prefabricated construction technologies will become even more cost-effective and needs to be promoted in a big way, the minister reportedly mentioned. About 2 crore dwelling units are to be built in urban areas and about 4 crore in rural areas to enable housing for economically-weaker sections and low-income groups. The government is taking several measures to popularise these technologies, which are now being used in big housing projects and need to be adopted for individual and small scale housing projects.   Meanwhile, as reported, Rao Inderjit Singh, Minister of State for HUPA, has asked government departments like Defence, Railways and PSU to promote such technologies in a big way. And, Nandita Chatterjee, HUPA Secretary, reportedly added that the Ministry of HUPA is in talks with the Ministry of Defence for building 2 lakh houses with alternative technologies for paramilitary forces.