Berhampur city plays host to National seminar on green building technology

BERHAMPUR: A three-day national seminar on ‘eco-friendly material and techniques for green building technology' is under way in Berhampur city. The seminar is being organised by the city chapter of the Institution of Engineers (India). Several experts of building technology and architects from different parts of the country are attending the seminar as resource persons, said organising secretary of the seminar Swadhin Kumar Panigrahy. On Tuesday, an interactive session to discuss implementation of green building concepts in fast-growing urban areas like Berhampur was held. It was attended by MLA Pradeep Kumar Panigrahy, Mayor of Berhampur city Siba Shankar Das, city SP Shefeen Ahmed Khan as well as several experts of the field. Dignitaries of the city discussed the issues related to comprehensive development plan for the city by the Berhampur Development Authority.Elucidating the need of the seminar, P.K. Maity, chairman of the Architecture Engineering Division Board of Institution of Engineers, who is attending it as an expert, said green buildings were an extreme need in this fast urbanising world. According to him, in the next three decades half of the population may shift to urban pockets. Green building practices aim at reducing the environmental impact of new buildings that come up in an area. For future sustainability there is a need for reducing amount of natural resources buildings' consume and the pollution caused by them, according to Mr. Maity. These steps have become need of the hour as buildings have started to account for large amount of land use, energy and water consumption, environmental alteration in urban areas. Experts attending the seminar were of the opinion that cost of a green building would be around six to eight per cent higher than conventional buildings. “But they felt this extra cost would get paid back through environmental restoration and energy conservation within decade. But conversion of existing buildings into ‘green buildings' is not cost effective at the present moment,” Mr. Maity said.

Source: The Hindu