India Focus: Bangalore buildings become eco-friendly

It is the city that the NRI favours most in the south. Not just because it claims to be the IT and biotech capital of the country, but probably also because of its attitude, a laid back citizenry that mingles well with a work-hard, play-hard culture that has entered with the MNCs.

It is then obviously time that Bangalore caught up with the times as far as infrastructure is concerned, but also looked far ahead and planned for the future.

Towards this end, the Bangalore City Corporation has proposed amendments to the existing building bye-laws of the Karnataka Municipal Corp Act that will ensure that any new buildings in the city will henceforth be environmentally sound and friendly and will not depend too much on the state machinery for energy and water - the two most scarce resources.

While there are already a couple of enclaves that are completely environmentally friendly and self-sustaining in the city - one off Kanakapura Road and the other past Yelahanka - they are more the exception than the norm.

With the new bye-laws, it will become mandatory for new buildings to install solar water heaters and rain harvesting systems, to plant two trees in every house, to design earthquake resistant buildings and to introduce disabled-friendly measures.

The emphasis in the proposed amendments will be on the water and energy front. Instead of disposing the rain water from the site, the owners will now be expected to harvest it.

Buildings with multi-family dwelling units, group housing, commercial buildings, public and semi-public buildings and industrial buildings in plots of 500 square meters and more will be expected to provide rain water harvesting infrastructure.

This infrastructure includes percolation pits and trenches to which the terrace water can be channelled.

Collection of terrace water is another alternative where a valve system can be incorporated to enable the first part of the rain water collected to discharge out to the ground, if it is dirty. The terrace could be connected to a sump or a well through a filtered tank by pipes.

Open ground water collection is yet another suggestion. In this, the top surface of the open ground is to be removed over a portion of the ground and filled back with coarse sand to allow percolation of rain water.

On the energy front, installation of solar water heaters will be made mandatory for buildings for which permission will be given keeping in mind the type of use. The City Corporation is also planning to introduce solar lighting system in all buildings for lighting the set back areas, driveways, gardens and towers.

While granting licences, the Corporation plans to enforce the planting of at least two trees around any new building and more where the site area exceeds 300 square metres.

This follows a direction from the chief minister's office to sanction licences to building plans only if a provision is made to plant two saplings in their plots.

Apart from these environmentally-friendly measures, the proposed amendments also demand that buildings are designed and constructed as per the National Building Code and the Bureau of Indian Standard norms.

Public and semi-public buildings of an area of 300 square meters or more should provide requisite facilities to the physically challenged by way of special designing of pathways, floor areas, signages, elevators and stairs.

The writer is a Bangalore-based journalist specialising in property and real estate.