Preamble

Housing is one of the basic requirements of any individual next to food and clothing. All of us dream for owning a suitable house in our life span. In today’s context when India is heading towards economic growth and entering into an era of overall development, it is more than essential that we create an enabling environment for affordable housing for one and all. BMTPC is an organisation which has been rendering its service to the nation in this direction by promoting alternate building materials and construction technologies since 1990. Over the years, we have realized that the technology exists but it does not reach to the common people. Most of the time, we are either not aware of these innovative interventions or do not know how to proceed. With this in mind, we are opening a section in our webpage which will have information from tooth to nail about the technologies and different traditional and alternate building materials which will educate the common person about how to build the house.

A house essentially comprises of foundation i.e. substructure and superstructure. The superstructure is further broken into walling, roofing/flooring, finishing and doors & windows. Our compendium comprises of sections on various alternatives of these elements of housing. We are incorporating the conventional, vernacular as well as alternative systems. The alternate systems provided here are not only cost-effective but also energy-efficient, eco-friendly and in consonance with our nature. They also help in setting up medium to small enterprise and depend on locally available materials. Let us explore it further; if in a given area, stone is in abundance, then it can be made use of in building the components such as blocks, slabs, lintels, foundations etc. If an area is near an industry such as thermal plant, the waste material like fly ash may be made use of for making bricks. In rural and remote areas, where transportation costs are high, mud can be wonderfully used to make walls, blocks etc.

Our Endeavour here is to propagate (a) alternative building materials making use of waste products either from industry or from agriculture (b) cost-effective construction technologies using the existing materials such as cement, brick, steel, timber efficiently.

The information contained herewith is mainly taken from the documents and publications of BMTPC. However, the other resources such as Indian standards, publications and websites of institutions, academia, and construction agencies are also referred so as to collate information at one platform.

We sincerely hope that the information would sensitize the common people to understand about the alternate materials & technologies which will go a long way in achieving goal of sustainable development towards affordable housing.