By Parvaiz Bhat
A number of loopholes, ranging from lack of efforts towards energy conservation to housing infrastructure fallacies, need to be plugged so that people are able to deal with harsh winters and natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods in Kashmir, experts said.
Ghulam Hassan Mir, a trained architect with international exposure and Joint Commissioner Planning at Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) observed that homes in Kashmir are designed in a way that doesn’t fulfil proper heating and energy conservation needs.
Referring to the housing infrastructure in Srinagar city, he said: “No building audit has been carried out in Srinagar so far. So, we don’t have the advantage of data with us.” But, he said that most of the buildings have been designed in ways which makes it impossible to use those structures for capitalising on solar energy and have proper heating with minimal energy use.
Citing the example of doors and windows in homes in Srinagar and other parts of Kashmir, Mir told Kashmir Observer: “Forget about architectural nitty-gritties like insulated walls or glazed windows which are ideal for a cold climatic zone such as Kashmir, doors and windows have wide crevices that are responsible for a lot of heat loss.”
According to him, the SMC has been trying hard to convince people to make good use of natural resources like solar energy and design their homes properly. For example, he said, the installation of solar lights is a precondition for handing out building permits.
But, independent experts said that more than energy conservation the fallacies in housing infrastructure in the valley are more so a concern in terms of peoples’ vulnerability to disasters such as earthquakes and floods.
Experts said that despite availability of some policy guidelines about the housing infrastructure, Kashmir’s picturesque landscape conceals “a troubling reality” because of lack of infrastructural preparedness for mitigation of disasters given that seismic and hydrological hazards continue to threaten this region.
In terms of susceptibility to earthquakes, Kashmir and other Himalayan regions fall under Zone V (as per the seismic zoning map of Bureau of Indian Standards) which is a high-risk earthquake zone. The valley is also prone to floods which are expected to increase in frequency in the Himalayan region including Kashmir as per various climate change projections made by Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change. The region has witnessed catastrophic earthquakes and floods in the past, underscoring the urgent need for earthquake-resistant and flood-resistant structures. However, experts say, a significant portion of housing stock remains vulnerable to disasters.
Saleem Beg, regional head of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) in Jammu and Kashmir, said that the infrastructure that has come up in the past three-four decades across Kashmir is neither in tandem with the safety nor services requirements. Sooner or later, Beg said, there has to be a building audit to fix these problems.
“The instructions should flow from the government — both for fixing the existing problems and ideal planning for the new constructions. For example, the concept of hollow bricks was introduced here, but it was never taken forward at policy level. There has to be some consistency,” Beg said.
“Earlier, we didn’t have many safety concerns as our infrastructure was organically designed. The masons and carpenters had an unstated art to build homes. Such kind of infrastructure-building was abandoned in the 1980s,” Beg said.
The houses and government buildings in those years, he said, would have adequate exposure to sun, less windows and double-glazed windows. “The architecture would also provide earthquake resistance. The Dajji Dewari system of construction (braced timber frames filled with brickwork) was one such example,” he said.
“Architecture changes everywhere and we have also witnessed the change here. But, it is high time to revisit that architecture, of course with some modifications,” Beg said and added: “It is very important considering the challenges we face.”
According to Beg, most houses in Kashmir did not have required mix of iron and concrete. “Ideally, we should think of retro-fitting measures for such structures to make them secure. Earthquakes don’t kill, the buildings do. Most people died in the 2005 earthquake because they were trapped in the government buildings,” he said and added that most of the residential areas were inundated during the 2014 floods and other flooding events in recent years because they were built in flood prone areas without considering flood preparedness while creating infrastructure in those areas.
Beg said that it is a well-known fact that Kashmir is prone to floods and a large population of Srinagar city lives in the flood plains. “Such infrastructure is not safe for obvious reasons. Even some government buildings are in flood plains,” he said.
According to Beg and other experts, rapid urbanization and unplanned development exacerbate the vulnerability, with informal settlements mushrooming in hazard-prone areas.
Losing heat, wasting energy!
According to Sameer Maithel –a mechanical engineer who works on building design, building materials and renewable energy and has worked in Kashmir for several years –use of insulation on walls and roof is crucial for reducing loss of heat during the winter months in Kashmir. Maithel is the director of New Delhi-based research and advisory firm Greentech Knowledge Solutions.
He said that people in Kashmir spend more time inside their houses (particularly in winters), which calls for a thermally comfortable environment and added that “the indoor temperatures should be comfortable with minimum use of air-conditioning or heating.” This, he said, would not only reduce dependence on electricity, but would also reduce the cost of electricity.
“Houses or buildings should be designed in a way that they have windows or sun-space, located strategically to allow solar energy to come inside the building during winter. Windows have to be double-glazed to provide insulation. They should be tightly fitted so that cold air does not come inside,” Maithel said.
Iftikhar Drabu, a civil engineer from Kashmir who has over 35 years of experience and has worked as a consultant for several national and international organisations said that a significant amount of energy is wasted in the valley in all consumption areas, including heating, cooking and lighting. According to Drabu, cooking, cooling and heating are areas where consumption can potentially be reduced by more than 70 per cent.
While talking to Kashmir Observer, Drabu said that heating of rooms and water using boilers and geysers — and cooking on electric heaters comprised around 75 percent of domestic electricity consumption. “We can reduce the energy consumption with proper usage and retro-fitting, including insulation of walls and proper window construction with thick double glazing,” Drabu said.
He said that the usage of hybrid sources, including solar power and traditional electricity, can result in huge savings. Solar energy, according to Drabu, is one source that remained under-utilised as homes in Kashmir were not designed to capture and capitalise on solar energy.
This form of energy — used minimally by residents for heating water — must be popularised in Kashmir because of intensive consumption during the winter season, Drabu observed. “We can make good use of it even in winter, though solar energy needs to be augmented with electric power,” he said.
Industrial use of electricity is minimal in Kashmir, with electric energy primarily consumed domestically for heating, cooling, cooking, lighting, etc. Heating, as Drabu explained, accounts for a considerable percentage of electricity consumption in the region, known for its long and harsh winters spanning over five months.
Drabu also suggested retro-fitting in institutional buildings like hospitals, which he said can help conserve energy significantly. “I hope steps have been taken in that direction. But, if it is yet to be done, it should be initiated as soon as possible. Huge savings can be achieved in initial capital cost of heating and in running costs. We can recover the costs of retro-fitting in three-four years,” he said.
An engineer who has worked in the power development Department for over three decades, but preferred to stay anonymous, said that using energy-saving appliances in homes is another parameter which people in Kashmir need to fulfil in order to make judicious use of energy. He said that the choice of devices can play a big role in saving energy as a lot energy can be saved using energy-friendly devices like water heating by geysers which have a thermostat and 3-star- or 5-star-efficient appliances for conservation of energy in the case of refrigerators, air-conditioners, washing machines, etc.
He said that around 50-60 per cent electricity is misused across Kashmir because people don’t follow the norms of electricity consumption as most people usually keep their heating devices switched on for hours, even if they needed to use the device to heat water for two hours.
Amidst the climate crisis engulfing the world, the global community at the individual, community and government levels is awakening to the urgency of the energy crisis, judicious use of energy and the cleaner means of energy production. Initiatives promoting renewable energy sources, stringent energy efficiency standards, and educational campaigns on responsible energy usage are increasingly gaining traction around the world.
In India, the central government and the state governments across the country are also urging the people to conserve energy by opting for its judicious use. “Electricity is life: Conserve it,” says a slogan on the website of Jammu and Kashmir’s power development department (PDD). But, people across the valley have been complaining that electricity is not being made available to them as per their needs which is a serious concern for them. Over the past few weeks some videos ridiculing the inaccessibility to electricity in the valley amid winter cold went viral. “Electricity in our homes comes and goes like a miss-call,” said an elderly man in a vide that went viral on social media. Most of the comments posted on social media by people these days in the valley lament the lack of electricity.
However, experts say that whether it is about resolving the issues related to energy or safety, all stakeholders need to make concerted efforts to fix them. “The vulnerability of Kashmir’s housing infrastructure to earthquakes and floods underscores the urgent need for proactive measures,” said Beg.
He added that building resilience against natural disasters requires concerted efforts to overhaul housing practices, empower communities, and integrate disaster-resistant infrastructure into the fabric of the valley’s development. “Whether it is dealing with natural disasters or dealing with any other challenge, the solutions are only in collective action,” Beg said.
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