From rbalachan@GMAIL.COM Mon Feb 28 12:31:24 2005
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 22:30:39 -0800
From: Ramachandran Balachandran 
To: nathistory-india@Princeton.EDU
Subject: Eco construction in Bangalore

Folks,
  If you are planning to build a house in Bangalore, make sure you
consider Chitra Viswanath's eco technique as one of your options.

  She is an expert in Eco Construction. You are aware that the normal
buildings are built with cement, sand, granite, bricks etc. The
backend story for this buildings are,

    1. Sand is mined illegally from rivers thereby drying out the
river even during monsoon. Good example of this is case is the drying
out of Kerala's pernineal rivers like Bharatpuzha and Kabini even
during monsoon. When rivers dry out, the villagers migrate en masse to
cities in search of basic water and food. What's the point in cribbing
that cities like mumbai or chennai is getting crowded when people dont
even have basic water in villages.

   2. Cement is widely used. Cement is mined most inside or close to
forest areas.

   3. Granite which is quaried right from forest areas and in lot of
cases in an illegal manner.

   4. Bricks which come from brick klin violate environment laws and
pollute the local regions in which they operate.

   5. Massive human rights violation. The houses we live are built by
poor people who work without even basic of the basic facilites. They
dont even have basic gloves, shoes, helmets, nasal cover, shirts/pants
etc. You can see these faceless abused workers in each and every
home/apartment/office/resort/etc construction places.

   With Chitra's approach most of the above is avoided. Even if some
things like cement is present, it is made sure it is in very little
quantites rather than conventional buildings.

   For more details please visit,
     http://www.inika.com/chitra/moreinfo.pdf
     http://www.inika.com/chitra/

  You can also mail her at chitravishwanath@vsnl.com.

Bala.