The housing problem in India is huge, with urban housing shortage pegged at 11.2 million dwelling units. In order to reduce the housing  shortage, it is necessary that a speedy and affordable housing construction mechanism be devised. For long, Indians have been building either by the brick masonry or random rubble masonry method or by using an RCC framed structure with infill walls. This system of housing construction is time consuming process, with wastages and inherent difficulties of quality control besides air and noise pollution. Further, there is a shortage of conventional building materials also such as sand, bricks and so on. Therefore, there is an urgent need for us to look at alternate and innovative building materials and construction systems.

In the last few decades, several new technologies have been researched. We now use many waste materials for housing construction. Similarly, there are methods of constructing with completely new materials. Machinery and technologies for construction in a speedy manner are also now available.

However, the awareness of all these alternate & innovative materials, technologies and methods of construction is limited and therefore, their spread has also somehow been restricted The recent initiative of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) of the Government of India called Global Housing Technology Challenge-India (GHTC-India) has brought this issue into a sharp focus in the year 2019. Through GHTC-India, a large number of new materials and technologies being used in over 30 countries across the world have been identified and will be used for constructing light house projects in six different states in India. Most of these are green, affordable, fast and easy to construct. These six major ‘light house projects’ will be live laboratories for evaluation, assessment, certification, standardization, skill development leading to adapting and mainstreaming these technologies in India. This disruption is soon going to herald a major housing’ revolution in the country.

The Course on Innovative Construction Technologies has been launched as one of the activities under “Construction Technology Year (2019-20)” which was announced by the Hon’ble Prime Minister during Construction Technology India 2019 : Expo-cum-conference under Global Housing Technology Challenge – India on March 2, 2019 at New Delhi.

It is being offered jointly by the School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi and Building Materials & Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC), Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, New Delhi.

The objectives of this course are to:
 
a) Familiarise the professionals with the latest materials and technologies being used worldwide for housing.
 
b) Provide an awareness of the state of art of materials and technologies in terms of properties, specifications, performance, design and construction methodologies so that professionals can successfully employ these in their day to day practice.
 
c) Provide exposure to executed projects where such materials and technologies have been implemented.