Centre to fast-track green footprint

​Hyderabad: With a population of around 1.3 billion, the country stands second with 6.33 billion sft green footprint, the expectation to achieve 10 billion sft by 2022 green footprint should be doubled and all the stakeholders must work towards it, Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri said here on Thursday.

Speaking at the 16th Green Building Congress 2018, the Minister informed to sign a MoU with the Indian Green Building Council. ‘To increase the green building and green built environment the government will sign a MoU to deal with five flagship programmes including sanitation campaign, smart cities, affordable housing anchored by ministry of housing and urban affairs.’

The minister also informed to launch, ‘global green construction challenge’ by year-end. He said the government calls for participants with green technology to take part in the challenge with the aim to promote eco-friendly technologies in the sector. “We will invite all participants, entities which have green technology, to come and participate in this fascinating exercise which we are engaged in,” he added. The Minister launched the net zero energy building rating system, developed by IGBC.