BANGALORE: Can recycled paper be an answer to the housing problem in India?
A Bangalore-based entrepreneur is showing the way to do it. One such house - made of paper honeycomb - is coming up in Amethi, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi's constituency.
Naren, chairman and managing director of Bangalore-based Vaspar Eco Solutions, who is also the man behind the idea of using handmade paper honeycomb for building construction, said the Amethi project was almost complete.
"In three weeks, we will be done with the construction," he said. "The idea is to prove that affordable housing can be built and also they can be built under schemes like the NREGA."
Apart from one house coming up in Amethi's handicraft village, another one is being constructed in Rae Bareli. Naren said the houses were 100 per cent green and handmade.
"They can generate employment for the unskilled village population," he said.
A prefabricated house like this, which measures approximately 350 sq ft, costs about Rs 1.25 lakh and requires seven days to build.
"Everything is over-engineered these days. Why would you need a nine-inch wall between two rooms of a house when it can be done with a two-inch wall?," he said.