NERD’s 10 year plan for construction industry

Hathoon Sheriffdeen

PLAN: National Engineering Research and Development Centre of Sri Lanka (NERD) have set up a 10-year plan to build the country with less consumption of natural resources for construction needs.

The Head of Department Civil Engineering, NERD G.K.K.A. De Silva said the bottleneck of the Sri Lankan construction industry is the excavating of sand.

We have been facing various natural obstacles by excavating sand in various areas such as Central Province and the coastal areas of the country.

Today, the construction industry is facing an imposed barrier in excavating sand from rivers and lakes. To overcome this problem NERD has invented cement soil bricks, which is easy to manufacture and cost effective.

NERD has already completed some construction projects using these bricks, and are successful too.

“National Engineering Research and Development Centre of Sri Lanka is developing a pre-fab housing system. NERD can develop the standard sample houses to suit the different sizes of land and needs.

People can use these standard frames and build their houses within two to three weeks time. The cost of constructing a house will also come down. This technology will be introduced to people in few years time,” de Silva said.