India wants to build over 10 million units of affordable housing in urban areas by 2022 using resource-efficient and sustainable technologies. To help achieve this ambitious goal, the government has now launched the Global Housing Technology Challenge - India (GHTC-India).
Open to construction technology providers from around the world, GHTC-India aims to identify which emerging, disaster-resilient, environmentally friendly, cost-effective and speedy construction technologies would be suitable for adoption in India, according to a news release from the World Resources Institute (WRI), which is the primary knowledge partner to GHTC-India.
The challenge has three components. First, a conference will be held on 2-3 March for various stakeholders to engage in knowledge and business exchanges. Then, participants will be asked to design and build over 1,000 houses each in six locations across India using green construction technologies. Finally, promising technologies will be promoted by setting up incubation centres at selected institutes of technology and organizing accelerator workshops.
“I believe this whole process of the GHTC-India challenge is a well-conceptualized and designed program to bring out the most innovative, simple, effective and appropriate solutions for making housing available and affordable to the common man,” said housing minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
According to the CEO of WRI India, OP Agarwal, India is home to 16 per cent of the world’s population but has only 2 per cent of the world’s land mass. It must therefore manage its limited pool of resources carefully and use modern technologies to bring quality affordable housing to the country’s urban poor.
