Hyderabad: A visit to government offices, especially those of GHMC, is generally an unpleasant experience, with their walls stained by paan spittle, the broken roofs and the congested and messy rooms.
But a visit to what would be the new conference room at the Central Zone GHMC office at Khairatabad—to be made of bamboo and supported with solar energy—promises to be an altogether different experience.
Hari Chandana Dasari, central zone municipal commissioner said, “Most of our corporation buildings do not suit the eco–friendly concepts. With regard to the central zone office, which is located in the heavy traffic zone of Khairatabad, the building is cramped. We are left with no space for an official meeting. Whenever we wanted to hold a meet, we used to book a hotel conference hall. That’s when I decided to have a sustainable and eco–friendly room, instead of having a concrete structure.”
She explained, “The bamboo conference hall will be a semi-permanent structure built on a 2,500 square feet space on the terrace of the central zone office at Khairatabad. The room is being constructed using bamboo, and only bamboo. The other eco–friendly features will be solar panels and landscaping in the open space. The total cost of the eco-friendly structure is around Rs 10 lakh, some 50 per cent less than what a concrete structure could cost. This is likely to be completed by mid- May.”
Meanwhile, the municipal commissioner has directed zonal officials to install solar panels and LED lighting to save energy across all the GHMC offices.
The idea is to install rooftop grid-connected power generation plants on its properties.
In the first phase, 44 buildings out of the total 942 properties of the city’s civic body will get the panels. The GHMC has estimated that a monthly amount of Rs 52.5 lakh will be saved with the installation of solar panels on its properties
