The Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), which is emphasising the need for green building concept, plans to cover 5 billion square feet of constructed areas within 2017.
C.N. Raghavendran, Chairman, IGBC, Chennai chapter, told The Hindu , on the sidelines of ‘Go Green Puducherry’, a one-day seminar conducted by the Confederation of Indian Industry here, that the council, which was started in 2001 with the aim of advocating the stakeholders of construction industry to follow green technologies to minimise the usage of energy and ensure pollution-free life, had made remarkable contribution in the field.
The coverage of green building technology hovered around 20,000 square feet in 2003. It had gone up to 1.82 billion square feet in 2013. It had been decided to bring about 5 billion square feet in 2017 under the green cover concept. The IGBC had come up with a number of programmes to achieve the target, he said.
S. Raghupathy, Executive Director, Confederation of Indian Industry, Green Business Centre, Hyderabad, said that increasing the number of chapters of IGBC was among the agenda. In the next three years, it should be increased to 50 chapters from existing 14 in all capitals of States, Union Territories and big cities. Three more chapters would be inaugurated in the country including Chandigarh shortly.
While pointing out the role played by Tamil Nadu government on green technology by making rain harvesting provision compulsory in buildings, Mr. Raghavendran said the awareness on green building initiatives had been clearly felt in Maharashtra, New Delhi and Tamil Nadu. About 27 per cent of the green certified buildings were located in Maharashtra.
Mr. Raghupathy said so far about 2,400 projects including hospitals, airports, corporate houses, residential buildings had been identified as green technology buildings. As many as 550 projects had been given final certification of IGBC for applying the guidelines of green housing concept.
Similarly, 300 pre-certification had also been given to various projects that had designed their new projects in accordance with saving energy, water and other resources.
Earlier, inaugurating the seminar, Chief Minister N. Rangasamy said the Puducherry government had already taken a decision not to promote polluting industries. The land, air and environment would not be allowed to pollute. However, his government would promote green industries.
K. Amarnath, Chairman, CII, Puducherry council, M. Dwaraknath, Director, Department of Science & Technology, I. Syed Sajjadh Ali, Vice Chairman, CII, Puducherry council and others spoke.
