IIT-H hosts workshop on Affordable Housing for All

​Hyderabad: Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad hosted a workshop on ‘Affordable housing for all’ during which experts said that steel building should be the choice of construction. The workshop was organised jointly with the Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC) under the aegis of Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Government of India.

The Structural Steel Research Group at IIT Hyderabad has been working in this area for more than six years to solve the housing need for all Indians through the use of a sustainable material such as Structural Steel.  

Experts who attended the seminar on affordable housing for all seminars, organised on recently by Structural Steel Research Group of IIT Hyderabad, said steel will make the construction practices easier and affordable. The seminar was attended by more than 100 participants from all over India including students, academicians, consultants and engineers from construction industries.

Speaking on the occasion, the organiser of the workshop, Dr. Mahendrakumar Madhavan, Associate Professor, Structural Steel Research Group, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, said, “To  fulfill the Government of India’s mission of Housing for All by 2022, it is important for the policy makers and government agencies to promote steel as a sustainable alternative to conventional construction practices.  

This can be accomplished by creating a steel based ecosystem where researchers from academic institutions, fabricators, designers and contractors can work together and share their best practices to deliver a quality product.”

Further, he said that to enable such an ecosystem, the Government should step forward to create a ‘Structural Steel Academy’ where the required skill set in terms of technicians such as qualified welders, erectors and fabricators can be produced.  

In addition, Dr. Madhavan said that very little research activity was being carried out in India in this important area of national need. The need of the hour was to have dedicated funding sources jointly pooled by relevant industries and Government agencies to carry out necessary research with an aim to produce an up to date steel standards which will eventually pave way for steel intensive houses.

Addressing the seminar, P V Rao, Managing Director, PEBS Pennar, said that the use of the light gauge steel could well reduce the cost of the construction.  He also opined that the policy makers from the governments should compel the use of sustainable the materials for the construction whereas the current construction activities using concrete will worsen the environment of the nation.    

CN. Jha from BMTPC said that the construction using the steel structures is easier and affordable.  The Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council was undertaking various activities to create the awareness among the people of the nation to use the sustainable materials in the construction.  B Umashankar, Head, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, said that these workshops were being organized to create the awareness among the budding engineers.