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energy consumption
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cost
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income generation
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acceptability
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maintenance requirements
The project had created a database to provide a menu of roofing, walling and foundation systems. Reliable information on the life cycle cost and environmental impacts was developed. This project provided a unique opportunity to observe the aging of a variety of materials and technologies in one consistent setting – being built in the same time, located in the same climatic zone, having same end usage and constructed under the same degree of supervision. A year long rigorous research helped in identifying cost-effective and green technologies for various regions of India. Care was taken to make sure that the embodied non renewable energy of the adopted technologies and emission of CO2 were low. The use of renewable energy was encouraged. In APPEP the cost savings ranged between 10 to 35 percent of the cement, steel and brick intensive construction. The Panchayati Raj Engineering Department engineers were trained for six weeks. During implementation the masons and the contractors were given hands-on training on the job. A mathematical model was developed by considering the following indicators to do the balancing act of cost effectiveness and greenness of the technologies. 1) unit cost of construction - lower the better 2) income multiplier effect, higher the better 3) labour intensity- skilled, semi skilled and unskilled, higher the better 4) embodied non-renewable energy - lower the better 5) embodied renewable energy - lower the better 6) embodied waste energy - higher the better 7) CO2 emission - lower the better Based on the above assumptions, the model did the balancing act of finding out the most appropriate construction technology in a particular context. This model has been tested in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Iraq, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Therefore, the model is robust enough to be used in any context. A book titled Vidyalayam was published by DFID, which had all the required data for assessing suitability of technologies in a particular context. There was a significant impact of this project in many parts of India. Right after the innovation in Ranga Reddy, the Secretary to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Orissa requested DFID to pay for the consultant to construct three cost-effective and environmentfriendly primary health care units funded by the state government. This was implemented within 18 months. The biggest impact of APPEP was on District Primary Education Programme (DPEP). Under DPEP 69,000 education buildings and 53,000 additional classrooms were constructed. Most of them were based on cost-effective and environment-friendly technologies. Lesson Learnt: The APPEP experience was completely based on housing technologies and thus appropriate for IAY. Using APPEP data on cost-effective and environment-friendly technologies, the Zila Parishad should try to influence the IAY beneficiaries. The HUDCO rural building centres, in its revamped form, should be in the driving seat in promoting greenness and by brining this to the doorsteps of the beneficiaries.
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