Need to promote alternative construction technologies :Naidu

Union Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today pitched for promoting alternative technologies in place of conventional construction methods to meet the housing demand in the country.
He also called for speedy, safe, and sustainable construction to accomplish the Modi-government mission of 'Housing to All' by 2022.
"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," Naidu said inaugurating a Housing Technology Park here.
Several such technologies validated by official technical agencies are now available and need to be scaled up in use, he added.

Naidu said that with increase in demand, prefabricated construction technologies would become even more cost effective and it need to be promoted in a big way.
The Minister said that about two crore dwelling units are to be built in urban areas and about four crore in rural areas to enable housing for economically weaker sections and low income groups.

Noting that government is taking several measures to popularise these technologies, he said these technologies are now being used in big housing projects and need to be adopted for individual and small scale housing projects.
Minister of State for HUPA, Rao Inderjit Singh asked government departments like Defence, Railways and PSU to promote such technologies in a big way.

HUPA Secretary Nandita Chatterjee said the Ministry of HUPA is in talks with the Ministry of Defence for building two lakh houses with alternative technologies for paramilitary forces.
Hindustan Prefab Ltd CMD Rajesh Goyal said 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.
HPL has developed the Housing Technology Park in Jangpura here and put on display 11 houses built with different alternative technologies for creating awareness and promotion of these technologies.