Government finalizing draft policy on incentive to promote green building

Chennai: The Centre was finalizing a draft policy on non-financial incentives to promote green buildings, a top official of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation said on Saturday.

Referring to the additional Floor Space Index, for green buildings in Noida, Union Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Arun Kumar Mishra said that such measures would be actively promoted by the Centre and made part of the national policy (on promotion of green buildings).

Stating that the government had a role in encouraging green buildings, he said, “In government housing programmes, we plan to do about a million houses in the next four years. We have already made it a part of our instruction that any block, any State, any municipality wanting to construct these green buildings, will be covered in our project cost. We have Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council and we can enter into an MoU to promote this energy saving green technology.”

Stating the Centre would also promote alternative technologies in building material, he indicated that the issue of financial support for this sector would be pursued if needed.

He said that the Centre would be inclined to ink an MoU with the Green Buildings Council to sponsor a training programme for the engineers and senior officers of the Centre so that “they could be acquainted with this green technology.”

CN Raghavendran, Chairman, IGBC-Chennai Chapter said over a period of time India’s building footprint would be “100 billion square feet out of which 70 billion square feet will be in the residential sector, which is growing at a rate of 5 percent every year.”