Resource crunch demand shift in construction industry; demand for new materials, innovative technologies up

Bengaluru:  Wiseman and renowned bureaucrat P. N. Haksar, late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Principal Secretary, had made an apt observation while speaking at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore in 1982: “Any Indian who aspires to have a roof of his own on his head out of his legitimate income, should be called an overambitious person.” I was a young journalist then covering the proceedings of a seminar on housing for a Bangalore daily. His words still echo into my ears.
Nearly four decades since then, the situation has not altered in any considerable measure, although bank loans on EMI have certainly made some difference to the new upwardly mobile middle class in a selected few cities. A home of his own for an average Indian in a city before he steps into his late adulthood is still like daydreaming.
A good two-thirds of the cost incurred on constructing a house goes for material like sand, stone as aggregates, soil for bricks and limestone for cement. That is all for the bare structure. Finishing is an unfinished task taking a lot of glass, timber, plastic, PVC, aluminum and paints. With most states having banned sand-mining from river-beds, price of sand from black market is shooting through the roof. Bricks are in short supply. Steel for reinforcement of concrete pillars is pricey. With cities expanding limitlessly, the transportation of material to core areas involves cost, often by way of bribing the police, if the material like sand is sourced illegally.
The need is therefore being felt to find alternative material and innovative technologies for construction. Indian construction industry which employs the largest unskilled workforce (after agriculture) and contributes nearly 10% to the national GDP is likely to face material supply problems if the predicted growth in demand continues.
Conventional brick and mortar construction consumes 40% of energy, 25% of water, and 40% of resources. It contributes 50% of air pollution, 42% of GHG emissions, 50% of water pollution and 48% of solid waste in cities. As urbanization races into future, the urban population is likely to touch 590 million by 2030 and 815 million by 2050. “India needs to build 600 to 800 sqm of urban space every year till 2030 which roughly translates into adding a new Chicago every year,” says  Shailesh Kumar Agrawal, executive director, Building Materials & Technology Promotion Council (BMPTC). The Council acts like a think tank under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA). Agrawal said this while delivering keynote address at an international seminar on Alternative Material and Innovation Technologies in Bengaluru last week convened by Indian Concrete Institute (ICI).
India is already the second largest producer of cement in the world which is currently pegged at 335 million tons (2020 figures) annually. It accounts for 8% of the total global production. Between 1996 and 2010, cement production increased fourfold. If the growth remains at the same pace, India may exhaust its limestone—the key ingredient—reserves by 2060.