What is Light House Projects

Light House Projects (LHPs) under Global Housing Technology Challenge-India (GHTC-India) at six sites across six States on 1st January 2021. Prime Minister will also announce winners under Affordable Sustainable Housing Accelerators – India (ASHA-India) and give out annual awards for excellence in implementation of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban (PMAY-U) Mission.

Certificate course on innovative construction technologies named NAVARITIH (New, Affordable, Validated, Research Innovation Technologies for Indian Housing) and a compendium of 54 innovative housing construction technologies identified through GHTC-India.
Union MoS (I/C) for Housing and Urban Affairs, along with Chief Ministers of Tripura, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh will be present on the occasion.

Light House Projects

The Light House Projects (LHPs) showcase the best of new-age alternate global technologies, materials and processes in the construction sector for the first time in the country at such a large scale.
They are being constructed under GHTC-India which envisages to provide an ecosystem for adoption of innovative technologies in the housing construction sector in a holistic manner.
The LHPs are being constructed at Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Rajkot (Gujarat), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Agartala (Tripura) and Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh). They comprise about 1000 houses at each location along with allied infrastructure facilities.
These projects will demonstrate and deliver ready to live houses at an expedited pace within twelve months, as compared to conventional brick and mortar construction, and will be more economical, sustainable, of high quality and durability.
These LHPs demonstrate a variety of technologies, including Prefabricated Sandwich Panel System in LHP at Indore, Monolithic Concrete Construction using Tunnel Formwork in LHP at Rajkot, Precast Concrete Construction System in LHP at Chennai, 3D Volumetric Precast Concrete Construction System in LHP at Ranchi, Structural Steel Frame with Light Gauge Steel Infill Panels in LHP at Agartala and PVC Stay In Place Formwork System in LHP at Lucknow.
The LHPs will serve as live laboratories for facilitating transfer of technology to the field and its further replication.
This includes planning, design, production of components, construction practices and testing for both faculty and students of IITs, NITs, other Engineering colleges, Planning and Architecture colleges, builders, professionals of private and public sectors and other stakeholders.

Light House Projects challenge:

The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs has instituted a challenge for States/ UTs to select six sites across the country for constructing the Lighthouse projects under GHTC-India.

MoHUA encourages all States/ UTs to participate in this challenge proactively. The winning six States/ UTs that score the highest marks across the prescribed criteria will be awarded lighthouse projects.
The States/ UTs will receive Central Assistance to construct these projects as per PMAY (U) guidelines. In addition to this, a Technology Innovation Grant (TIG) for the States/ UTs is provisioned to offset the impact of any additional cost implication due to the use of new technology and to absorb the issues related to economies of scale and other related factors.
The selected sites for lighthouse projects will be used as an ‘open laboratory’ for live demonstration and will receive due attention from academia (Civil Engineering, Planning, Architecture), practitioners (Public/ Private), policy makers (Central/ State) and media apart from felicitation/ recognition in Grand Expo-cum-Conference.
- The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs has already launched a “Global Housing Technology Challenge-India (GHTC- India)”.

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The challenge has three components viz.

Conduct of Grand Expo-cum-Conference,
ii) Identifying Proven Demonstrable Technologies from across the globe and
iii) Promoting Potential Technologies through the establishment of Affordable Sustainable Housing Accelerators- India (ASHA-I) for incubation and accelerator support.

Out of the three, the second component intends to identify and pilot ‘Proven Demonstrable Technologies’ from around the world in actual housing projects in different parts of the country.
The shortlisted global technology providers will be invited to plan and construct light house projects within the framework of PMAY (U) on pre-selected sites provided by States/UTs across six identified PMAY.
The Selected States/ UTs will enter into a Memorandum of Agreement (MoU) with MoHUA to execute these Light house projects in their States/ UTs under GHTC-India.
Tthe Ministry will also be doing the Technology Meets during the Construction year. This will encourage the potential beneficiary to visit the sites to see the ongoing work for adaptation.
The States/UTs have given an enthusiastic response and are participating in this unique Challenge with zeal.

Government Innititives:

ASHA-India

Affordable Sustainable Housing Accelerators – India (ASHA-India) aims to promote domestic research and entrepreneurship by providing incubation and acceleration support to potential future technologies.
Under ASHA-India initiative, five ASHA-India Centers have been set up for providing incubation and acceleration support. The potential technology winners under acceleration support will be announced by the Prime Minister.
The technologies, processes and materials identified through this initiative will provide a major fillip to young creative minds, start-ups, innovators and entrepreneurs.

PMAY-U Mission

Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban (PMAY-U) Mission has been designed to achieve the vision of “Housing For All by 2022”.
In order to recognize the outstanding contribution by States, UTs,Urban Local Bodies and beneficiaries, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has introduced annual awards for excellence in implementation of PMAY-Urban.