IIEC Recent News

The Eco-housing program, initiated in the Western Indian city of Pune with USAID support in the last two years, has successfully addressed the factors influencing the scale-up of sustainable housing development. Policy and market interventions led by IIEC in the first phase, have helped accelerate the adoption of energy efficient technologies and practices in the residential sector and have set the stage for expansion of the program at a national level.

 

The rating and certification system, developed around the Eco-housing assessment criteria, has helped build a significant momentum for sustainable construction practices in the regional market. Policy support both at the local and State level, tax rebates by the urban local body as well as specific housing mortgage products played a decisive role in scale-up of the program. Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) a leading nationalized bank in India announced a 0.25% rebate in interest rate on housing loan for Eco-housing projects. The Eco-housing certification has received an encouraging response from developers and two demonstration projects by private developers are already underway. After the successful customization of the assessment criteria to Mumbai city, several Municipal Corporations in Maharashtra have initiated the adoption of the Eco-housing program.

Building on this success, the second phase of the program will see the development of the Sustainable Building Technology Center (SBTC), and geographic scale-up supported by sensitization and capacity building of stakeholders in the Eco-housing supply chain. A significant achievement of the program is the commitment of over 3 acres of land by the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) for the development of the SBTC. The SBTC will function as a hub to demonstrate, display, educate and test alternative construction techniques, eco-friendly products and technologies. For more details on this initiative, please contact iiecindia.org.

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