BMTPC- Building Materials and Technology
Promotion Council
In a conversation with Dr. Shailesh Kumar Agrawal, Executive Director, Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC), Built Expressions gets a comprehensive glance on its objectives and initiatives.
In an order to promote and standardize proven innovative and emerging building materials and technologies in the construction sector, the Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC), established in 1990. It is an autonomous organisation under the aegis of the Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, government of India with the prime objective of bridging gap between the laboratory development and large scale field application of cost effective, environment-friendly and energy-efficient innovative building materials and disaster resistant construction technologies.
During past two decades, the Council could successfully introduced a number of building materials and technologies based on agro-industrial wastes such as fly ash based bricks/blocks, cellular light weight concrete and bamboo based materials. Partial pre-fabrication is another area which has been promoted by the Council with success. Using pre-fabricated components, a number of houses in different States have been constructed for demonstration. “For increased productivity and quality, the Council has been instrumental in developing easy-to-operate simple machines, which are being used in construction with encouraging results all over the country. The Council provides necessary inputs for policy interventions in the areas of saving of forest wood, top soil layer of fertile land, environment, energy, etc.,” says Dr. Shailesh Kumar Agrawal, Executive Director, Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC).
The Council is working towards bringing emerging technologies like Rapid wall Construction System, Monolithic Construction System and several other precast prefabricated construction system, which are successful elsewhere in the world, to bring cost, economy, quality, environmental protection and speed in housing construction. Further, the Council is evaluating these emerging technologies under the guidance of Technology Advisory Group setup by Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation.
With the efforts of the Council, a number of Indian Standards have been formulated in close association with Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) on cost effective technologies such as fly ash bricks, RCC planks & joist, bamboo mat corrugated roofing sheets etc. Through Performance Appraisal Certification Scheme (PACS), the Council is carrying out performance evaluation of new and emerging materials, technologies and construction systems, on which there are no standards available.
New Building Technology Promotion
The Council is playing a proactive role towards disaster mitigation & management. It has brought out Vulnerability Atlas of India, Landslide Hazard Zonation Atlas of India and Guidelines for improving Earthquake and Wind/Cyclone prone Housing Construction, Building Hazard Resistant Houses: a Common Man’s Guide and other promotional literature in English as well as in vernacular languages. With IIT Kanpur, BMTPC brought out easy to understand Earthquake Tips on various important aspects of earthquake resistant construction. To demonstrate seismic strengthening techniques, the Council carried out seismic strengthening of some lifeline buildings such as Kupwara Sub-Divisional Hospital in Jammu & Kashmir, 7 MCD Schools in Delhi and two school buildings in Uttarakhand, besides several buildings in Gujarat. The Council assisted the State/UT Governments in strengthening techno-legal regimes for safety against natural hazards.
For field level application of cost effective technology, the Council has constructed demonstration houses in several places like Dehradun, Bilaspur, Trichy, Nagpur, Kudalu and Bangalore. In order to further propagate the cost effective, energy efficient, environment friendly technologies, the Council has constructed demonstration structures such as houses, informal market, community buildings etc. in Uttar Pradesh, Harayana and Andhra Pradesh. Recently the council has initiated construction of Demonstration Houses in Rae Bareli.
To promote Bamboo as construction material, the Council has taken various initiatives such as construction of demonstration houses in Mizoram, Tripura and Meghalaya, establishment of
Bamboo Mat Production Centres in North Eastern Region & Kerala and capacity building in bamboo based technologies. The Council has also expanding its activities in the area of Project Management & Consultancy and BMTPC is one of the appraisal and monitoring agencies for BSUP and IHSDP projects under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY).
The Council, on regular basis, organizes and participates in Awareness Generation Programmes, Workshops, Exhibitions, Capacity Building and Training Programmes for construction professionals and artisans.
Labour Shortage Concern
Capacity building and skill development is one of the objectives of the Council. The Council organises number of Training Programmes for construction professionals and construction workers including entrepreneurs on the following subjects:
- Entrepreneurship Development Training Programme in the field of low cost housing technologies
- Cost Effective Building Materials and Disaster Resistant Technologies
- Field Level Applications of Appropriate Building Materials and Construction Technologies
- Performance Based Design and Retrofitting of Buildings against Earthquakes
- Disaster Resistant Construction Practices and Different Practices for Masons and Supervisors
- Capacity Building Programme for Urban Local Body officials under JNNURM on DPR preparation
- Codal Practices on Earthquake Resistant Design and Construction
- Design & Construction of Earthquake Resistant Structures
- Structural Diagnosis & Condition Analysis of RC Structures
- Building Maintenance– Water Proofing and General Repairs
- Advances in Concrete Mix Design & usage of Admixtures
- Structural Protection, Repair & Rehabilitation of Buildings
- Green Building Technologies
- Bamboo Housing Technologies
- Training & Certification of Concrete Field and Lab Technicians
- Quality Assurance under JNNURM
A number of training manuals and audio-visual aids have been brought out for providing training to construction professionals and workforce.
Sustainable Building Materials
As per its mandate, the Council's role for development and propagation of cost-effective and environment friendly building materials and technologies is a continuous activity for improving technology environment in the housing and building sector. Since the Govt. of India makes huge investments every year in supporting research and development, a number of emerging research results have been up scaled and supplementing developmental work to transfer these bench level results for wider field application and/or for commercial production of new materials components and products. The continuing interaction in past with the various stakeholders in the building materials and housing construction sector has given the opportunity to assess the technology needs of the industry which serves as the basis for further work of the Council. The output from such studies is either directly utilized by the industry or helps the Council in bringing out publications for different user groups. The operational linkages with various institutions developed and the output by networking with R&D organizations, industrial promotion agencies, centres of excellence, housing and construction agencies at Central and State levels. Responding to the problems confronted by the building materials and construction sector, Dr. Agrawal says, “The Council laid emphasis in its activities on identifying the gaps for sustainable development of building materials & construction sector and coordinated its efforts with concerned agencies for developing appropriate strategies for creating better acceptability of proven innovative technologies.”
The Council could match the expectations of the stakeholders by its proactive approach towards disaster mitigation and management. The Council has continued as an important resource institution to the Ministry of Home Affairs for dissemination on the Model Building Bye-laws and the subsequent revision of the Building Bye-laws by various State Governments.
While the emphasis on technology development, information, dissemination, validation and promotion of cost-effective technologies will continue, efforts are being made to encourage setting up of production units of cost-effective building materials at cottage and small scale to suit the investment capacities and local markets in rural, small and medium urban centres besides putting up Permanent Display Centres at the architecture and engineering colleges in various regions of the country. BMTPC in association with BIS has formulated standards on alternate technologies and also persuaded the State governments for incorporation in their schedule of rates. These have been incorporated in the schedule of rates of CPWD.
The Council is also developing course curriculum on alternate technologies for civil and architecture courses. The Council with its extensive networking with various R&D Institutions, Ministries/Government Departments, Universities, Financial Institutions, Public Agencies, Business
Federations/Organisations and various International organizations strives to provide multifaceted support services to the various stakeholders in the construction industry.
Encourage Green Materials
BMTPC has been functioning as a think tank in the area of promotion and development of the innovative, cost-effective, environment-friendly and energy-efficient building materials and technologies. The Council has been undertaking policy related work to facilitate implementation of a systematic and socially desirable policies relating to its thrust areas. The work undertaken by the BMTPC mainly relates to saving of forest wood, saving of fertile agricultural soil, energy conservation, boost entrepreneurial activities for production of innovative building materials based on waste and by-products from agriculture, industry and plant material etc., promotion of innovative and disaster resistant construction technologies and establishment of techno-legal regimes to promote concepts of safety against natural disasters like earthquakes/ cyclones/ floods/ landslides.
There is a strong need for large scale dissemination of building products & housing technologies through exhibitions, seminar, conferences and workshops. To disseminate the information and knowledge about the upcoming technologies, the Council organizes exhibitions and seminars to bring each and every important player to participate in the form of exhibition by putting up the display and present their innovations during the seminar in the area of affordable housing. During these events, BMTPC invites all the stake-holders such as researchers, architects, technology providers, technocrat, scientist, construction companies, implementing agencies state agencies, housing boards and policy makers at a common platform for better outreach and advocacy.
BMTPC Formulates Specifications
Despite a large number of innovative and cost-effective building materials, components and construction techniques developed through research, the housing and building organisations at central and state level could not adopt them in their construction practices. One of the foremost reasons for not taking initiative on the part of public housing and construction agencies was lack of Indian standards and codes of practice to cover new materials and technologies. Due to intensive efforts made by BMTPC and other related organisations in collaboration with BIS to cover most of the innovative building materials and construction techniques by designating standards and codes of practice.
Further interaction with the construction agencies, professionals, architects and engineering departments, it was found necessary that specifications on these new technologies should be formulated so that the construction agencies may adopt them in their tender documents to facilitate execution of works based on new techniques. Therefore, BMTPC formulated detailed specifications on a number of innovative building materials and construction systems. Efforts were then made to persuade construction agencies at the centre and the state levels to incorporate the new techniques in the departmental schedules of specifications and rates. As a result of such efforts, Central Public Works Department has incorporated some of these techniques in their schedules. Several housing agencies particularly in the States of Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Rajasthan have also incorporated the new materials and techniques in their schedules. These state level housing agencies have executed a number of housing schemes from EWS to HIG with new building materials and technologies thereby achieving substantial cost reduction in their projects.
Performance Appraisal Certificate Scheme (PACS)
The then Ministry of Urban Development & Poverty Alleviation, (now Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation), Government of India, under the Gazette Notification No.16011/5/99-H-II in the Gazette of India No.49 dated the 4th December 1999 has authorized BMTPC to issue Performance Appraisal Certificates (PAC) giving independent opinion of the fitness of new building materials, components, products, elements, construction system and assemblies for intended use, not yet covered by Indian standard.
This scheme provides for a third party certification for certifying the performance of the product and in the process it generates sufficient data needed for formulation of Indian Standard at later date. It has been framed to fill the gap between development of new products and formulation of Indian Standards. PACS contain all the details about the technical aspects including its performance characteristics and suitability for varying uses which will be quite helpful in exploring wider market potential. It will also help in building greater confidence in user’s mind and developing ultimately a national Standard on the subject. This scheme has been worked out in such a way that the total expenditure incurred by the applicant is very nominal depending upon the type of product/system, testing requirements, etc.
In view of the changing scenario in the housing sector, the Council in recent years has reoriented its approach towards promotion of emerging technologies through intensive evaluation, dissemination and demonstration. Presently, the Council is identifying and evaluating emerging technologies within India as well as from abroad for achieving, economy, speed and quality.
| Dr. Shailesh Kumar Agrawal is currently spear heading BMTPC as an executive director. Prior to this assignment, Dr. Agrawal has served Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee, a constituent establishment of CSIR and a premier research institute involved in R&D in the area of building science and technology as a scientist for more than 20 years. He did his B.Tech in Civil Engineering securing Silver Medal, M.Tech from Indian Institute of Science in Structural Engineering; topping the Group and Ph.D from IIT, Roorkee. His area of research are quite wide which encompasses distressed buildings, non-destruction testing, earthquake engineering, strong motion array data and its analysis, retrofitting, structural analysis and modeling etc. Dr. Agrawal has about 50 publications in national and international journals. He has |
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published few books in the area of earthquake resistant design of construction. Dr. Agrawal has widely travelled in India as well as abroad and has been instrumental in several international projects. Dr. Agrawal has been felicitated for his outstanding contribution in the area of disaster mitigation by Institution of Engineers, Roorkee as well as Centre of Excellence in Disaster Mitigation Management at IIT, Roorkee.
Prime Objectives of BMTPC
Building Materials & Construction Technologies: To promote development, standardisation, mechanisation and large scale field application of proven innovative and emerging building materials and technologies in the construction sector.
Capacity Building and Skill Development: To work as a Training Resource Centre for capacity building and promotion of good construction practices to professionals, construction agencies, artisans and marketing of building technologies from lab to land.
Disaster Mitigation & Management: To promote methodologies and technologies for natural disaster mitigation, vulnerability & risk reduction and retrofitting/ reconstruction of buildings and disaster resistant planning for human settlements.
Project Management & Consultancy: To undertake project management and consultancy services including appraisal, monitoring and third party inspection of housing projects under the various Central/State Schemes.