“Green” is the buzz word as the city seems to realise that it not only needs green buildings to conserve energy, but townships and specialised engineers to address the issue of conservation of water and energy.
Syed Mohamed Beary, chairman of Indian Green Building Council (IGBC)—Karnataka Chapter and managing director of Beary’s Group, said there are only 12,500 engineers trained in constructing green buildings, while the demand is for two lakh.
Bangalore has about 140 green buildings out of the 919 green buildings in India. These are important as they daily save over 30% water and 40% power in construction. Furthermore, the construction cost of these buildings has also (been) reduced.
He was speaking on the sidelines of the announcement of ‘Green Wave’ technical seminar for students of architecture and engineering in the city on Wednesday. The seminar will be held on February 12 at JN Tata auditorium in IISc. Over 195 engineering colleges and over 900 students, including those from IIM, VTU and Bangalore University would participate in the seminar. It would aim at drawing students to undertake the accredited professional course in green architecture affiliated to IGBC. The course can be undertaken by all engineers — mechanical, environmental and civil — and MBA graduates.
Beary said that the government is also gradually realising the importance of green buildings and have approved the construction of a 29 acre special economic zone-tech park in Whitefield, the construction of which is likely to start this year. He added that this year the government is now mulling over the idea to provide tangible concession in property tax in the budget for complying with the green building standards. The government has also agreed to ensure that all townships will comply with the Leed rating.
He added that many government buildings are making enquiries to comply with the green code and get Leed certification.
Adding to this, Chandrashekar Hariharan, executive member of IGBC and Biodiversity Conservation of India Limited (BCIL) chairman said that IGBC has announced plans to form student chapters in all architecture and engineering colleges across India. In the case of Karnataka, IGBC will launch student chapters in all participating institutions at Green Waves by conferring a ‘Chapter certificate’. The green wave will have expert speakers from the architectural fraternity presenting various concepts.
