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Despite much talk of developing houses which are eco-friendly as well as which contribute to the cause of greener and better environment, despite having the blueprints of developing these structure and numerous studies on feasibility of making these houses, India is far away from actualising these ideas. It is true that the new upcoming projects of group housing societies such as the ones coming up in the NCR region, say Greater Faridabad, do have the provisions for having large expanses of open and green areas and rainwater harvesting structures, these are just a few measures which are essentially aimed at sustainable living for the residents. Let us take utilisation of solar energy as a notable exclusion. How many projects are actually making use of the solar panels to deliver the some lighting or heating solutions to the residents. India is said to have more than 250 plus days of bright sunshine in a year which, if harnessed successfully by the residents, can lead to saving of electricity on a massive scale besides reducing the painful electricity bill. Similarly, though the builders have been developing their projects on tens of acres of lands and claiming to be leaving more than 75 percent of land areas open and green, will that contribute significantly to the cause of environment-friendly housing. Some of the practical problems which these developers are facing in implementing these measures in their projects such as at SRS Residency Faridabad are the expensiveness of technology as compared to the real output which is expected to be delivered, costly maintenance, heavy demand for affordable housing and less practically utilisable space for installing the required equipments. Let us take an example of setting up solar panel in a typical multi-story group housing society like SRS Residency. Where would you expect these to be installed? Naturally, the terraces would be the first choice but it will reduce the usable area. Or, the south facing exteriors of the buildings would be required to be made with the solar panels to harness solar power effectively which will make the otherwise affordable houses quite expensive. This severely limits the scope of using these measures. Some other measures to make eco-friendly housing such as use of eco-friendly building materials are practically not possible in regions where there is a need to develop the earthquake proof housing structures. More experiments with these housing methods can be done at an individual home level but not at the multi-storey housing level. Further, it is also doubtful whether the buyers, too, will be convinced with the efficacy and effectiveness of these measure, given the poor level of awareness among the people in general. The views expressed by the author in this article are his own and are not related to the SRS residency in any way. SRS Residency Faridabad is a beautiful residential project of 1008 units in Greater Faridabad area.
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