In the past few decades, there have been tremendous efforts put in by the Central and State Governments of our country to address the issue of rural housing shortage through various housing schemes like Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), Mukhya Mantri Gram Awas Yojana (MAY), Indiramma Housing Scheme, etc., for below poverty line (BPL) families. Though addressing the rural housing shortage has been a high priority area in the five year plans, the output of these schemes has not been satisfactory in terms of quality, numbers, user friendliness, environmental friendliness and cost effectiveness. As a result, there has been tremendous wastage of Government funds. Both national as well as local NGOs have put in immense efforts to promote innovative, eco-friendly and low-cost housing models in rural areas. It is an ongoing struggle to scale up these models in an economically viable manner due to lack of awareness about eco-friendly technologies among the rural population, shortage of sufficient number of green building material enterprises and its supply chain and lack of trained masons in eco-friendly construction technologies.

Apart from the rural houses constructed through various Government housing schemes, a large number of houses are also constructed in rural areas by the above poverty line (APL) families with their own monetary savings. Most of these houses are constructed in an incremental manner as per the savings made in a particular time period. These sections of the rural population are concerned about constructing a good quality house (aesthetically and structurally) in the least possible cost but are not always aware of the available eco-friendly construction technologies which can satisfy their needs in a cost-effective manner. They end up spending a huge amount of money, especially in Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) slabs and other conventional building construction technologies.

From the above analysis, it is obvious that there is a need to look at the economic perspective of promoting green lifestyle in terms of eco-friendly building construction in rural areas.

Eco-friendly and low-cost housing is the concept of building homes using environment-friendly materials and technologies that will reduce the environmental impact through construction activities and effective budgeting techniques and help to reduce the cost of construction. Green and low-cost housing involves proper management of resources in terms of materials, labour or money so that the end product has the lowest cost and, at the same time less environmental impact as a result of the efficiencies that are practiced during planning and construction of these buildings.

Following are some of the ways to reduce the construction cost of eco-friendly rural houses:

· Efficient use of locally available building materials

· Efficient use of locally available waste by-products from stone quarries or other industries for the manufacture of building materials like bricks, concrete blocks, pre cast roofing elements, etc.

· Use of precast roofing technologies that do not require any shuttering and take less time for installation or casting of the roof

· Efficient structural design of building elements (roof, walls, vertical and horizontal structural members) by avoiding wastage of building materials

· Setting up of small and medium scale enterprises for production of eco-friendly building materials using locally available raw materials which also creates livelihood opportunities for the rural population

· Creating a proper supply chain of eco-friendly building materials in rural areas

· Promoting mass housing construction activities – scaling up of green housing activities

· Convergence of Government-supported housing schemes with NGOs’ approach of eco-friendly housing construction activities

· Optimum use of space in house design

· Ensuring contribution by beneficiary families or house owners in terms of sweat equity while construction of these buildings

· Training and capacity building of local masons in green low-cost construction technologies

· Close monitoring and supervision while construction of eco houses