RAJKOT: Central government is expected to finalize on Tuesday an experiment on affordable housing in six cities, including Rajkot, with implementation of agencies as well as global technologies.
These six cities were selected as ‘live laboratories’ for the pilot project to build 1,000 houses using innovative technologies that are low-cost, sustainable and disaster-resistant.
Earlier this year, the urban development ministry’s technical evaluation committee had evaluated 54 proven technology providers with 32 new technologies for housing projects from 25 countries. Of these six technologies were finalized and the agencies had displayed houses they built using these technologies at IIT-Roorkee in March this year.
Banchhanidhi Pani, municipal commissioner, Rajkot said that Rajkot has seen some path-breaking work in technology adoption in public housing. It has already implemented Smart Ghar 3 where all green building norms have been followed. In fact, Rajkots is a lighthouse project for other cities in public housing.
Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) is building Raiya Smart City, where nearly 1,200 houses will be built using innovative technology. The selected agency will be responsible for implementing the project that includes works like site cleaning, excavation, construction, procurement of material among others using the chosen technology.
Pani said the beneficiaries of this housing project will mainly be those to contribute to the Smart City area. He added that this project will serve as a lighthouse not only for government-funded housing projects, but also for the private builders on adoption of technology and green building norms.
In the Smart Ghar projects implemented in the city till date, RMC has used the traditional principles of sun path, wind path and exhaust in all the houses.
Apart from Rajkot, the other cities selected for the project include Indore, Chennai, Agartala and Lucknow and Ranchi.
Source: ET Realty
Image Source: Ecofriend.com