Promoting precast concrete for affordable housing -An overview on promotional policies worldwide and challenges and possibilities in India

Housing crisis is one of the major issues the world is facing today. Worldwide, about 330 million households in urban areas are at substandard levels. In developing countries, about 200 million households are located in slum areas. By 2025, at least 1.6 billion citizens in the world are expected to be lacking adequate housing. India, a developing country, is also facing a huge housing demand of more than 60 million (6 crores) housing units. By 2022, this is expected to reach 110 million (11 Crores). The Cast In-situ Construction (CIC) technology cannot meet this huge demand at the fast pace required. In the past, some of the developed countries have successfully met similar huge housing demands by adopting the Precast Concrete Construction (PCC) technology. This paper reviews the promotional policies for PCC adopted in select developing countries and the impact of PCC in these countries. This paper also brings out various issues hindering the growth of PCC in India based on interviews with different stakeholders. Also, an attempt has been made to identify the current promotional policies in India and the areas of potential improvement for promoting PCC in India.