Hon'ble Minister of Urban Development, Smt.  Shiela Kaulji, Hon'ble Member of Parliament and Chief Patron of the Builders Federation of India, Shri R.K.  Dhawan, President Chairman of the Institution of Engineers, Shri O.P.  Goyal, and President of the Builders Federation of India, Shri Sureshji and distinguished friends,
         
I am very happy to have this opportunity of inaugurating this very important Seminar.  When Shri R.K.  Dhawan wrote to me inviting me to this inaugural function, I had, as he pointed out, no hesitation in accepting it. First of all because of the vital importance of the subject-matter that of housing, particularly mass housing for the people of India.  Secondly, I could not resist an invitation from my distinguished friend like Shri R.K.  Dhawan.
         
Mass housing development is part of the National Housing Policy enunciated by the Government of India.  It has been pointed out here by Shri Dhawan that how we should attach importance to housing for the workers, for the officials as well as for the more well-to-do categories of our people. Mr.  Goyal has also pointed out how ultimately the common man is the one who is most concerned in this enterprise.  The Hon'ble Minister has outlined very succinctly the plans the Government have formulated for implementing this vast programme.
 
This Seminar is a very unique one.  I do not think at any time before experts, engineers, builders, administrators, technicians and scientists have got together in once place such as this to deliberate the problem of housing in this country.  In that sense, it represents a very critical junction of expertise and concerned people to deal with this immense problem of housing for the millions of our people.  Housing represents not only just a technical matter but a profoundly socio-economic concern.  If you analyse it, without a house, there can be no family, there can no such thing as family loyalties, family ties, family affections which are at the root of our society, our living together.  If people live on the pavements, I doubt very much there would evolve any family unity at all.  Not only that, whether there would be any loyalty for those who live on the pavements, for the society and the country as a whole.  Therefore, the socio-economic and the ultimate political, I should say, even the spiritual importance of a house howsoever small, of a shelter, for a group of people is of immense importance for sustaining our society, for maintaining our unity and even for maintaining stability and law and order in our country.  Therefore, housing touches almost important aspects of life.  A house building while it is a technical process, it is involved in it, is health, education, sanitation, environmental concerns and indeed the entire gamut of life is really focussed on a house and one has to bring all this together if housing has to become a meaningful unit of our social existence.
 
The other day, I came across a scheme in the United States put forward by somebody, I have known.  It was a scheme for education for the black children.  Now, he has extended it into housing.  Housing schemes to be undertaken by educational institutions so that children coming from the deprived sections of society, their problems at home, especially the housing problems are attended to.  In our own country whether it is health, whether it is education, whether it is environment itself, or developmental activities, you have to co-ordinate it around the housing problems of the people and how you solve this problem.  A mention has been made to the comprehensive policy adopted by the Government of India.  Naturally, a national policy has to be comprehensive.  It must cover all aspects.  But houses are built brick by brick.  It is in the piecemeal implementation of the housing programme that the success of the entire policy lies.  and very often we in India are generalists.  We look at the totality of this.  We enunciated larger principles and approaches. 

Often we build up a philosophy behind it but the actual practical implementation of it has to be undertaken bit by bit, region by region, section by section, almost family by family and it is this detailed application of the policy that is most important.  I believe that if you can select, say this great city which is a microcosm of India and first of all try to solve the major problems of housing of this city, especially that of the poorer sections of the people in the city, then I think, the National Housing Policy would have achieved a very important, practical and magnificent success.  The very fact that you have collected together so many disciplines and top experts shows that probably at the lower levels we can collect together people who can apply their expertise in order to solve the housing problems of the city and make it a model and inspiring example for the whole of India.  The question of slums and other problems have been mentioned here. I am very practical in my approach on these things.  Everyday, you read in the newspapers how slums are being dismantled.  I ask myself why not we give greater emphasis on preventing the formation of new slums.  It is important to end the slums which are here.  I recall long time ago reading a note written by our first Prime Minister, Pt.  Jawaharlal Nehru. 

The most important thing is that we have at least tried to prevent new slums being formed in our great cities because once they are formed then it is almost impossible to dislodge them unless you can give them conspicuously better accommodation which is also very difficult.  But it is possible to prevent building up of slums, if you notice it at the initial stage.  Unless we can prevent new housing problems being created everyday, in this manner you will not be able to tackle the cumulative problems which are already so massive, so frustrating for any kind of solution.  Mention has been made about new technologies, and new materials. I think this is probably a clue, an important clue for the solution of the housing problem of this country because of the manner in which the population is growing.  You know that the projections have been that the world population if it grows at this rate there will even be standing room for people after 30 or 40 years.  Now, there is no question of talking about housing in such a situation, and therefore, not only health, population is a vital aspect of housing problem and we have to deal with that problem also together with housing, education and health.  They are all integrated into one subject of concern for all of us.  The new building materials and new technologies are being developed in our country. 

In fact, new technologies, Government institutions have developed and there are many voluntary private institutions which have developed new technologies.  Not that, we do not have these technologies or even some of the materials.  But as the Hon'ble Minister has mentioned, we have to know how to utilise local materials for building. Gandhiji had said long time ago, that every house in a village should be built by materials available within l0 kms.  of the place.  This was the approach. We have decentralise and think of things in split of our problem so that these problems become solvable.  Now, as regards new technologies what is required is how to incorporate them into the central massive pool of technology developed by governmental institutions like the CPWD, HUDCO.  They all have developed new technologies.  How do you incorporate the other technologies which have been developed and applied in different parts of India.  Of course, they cannot be applied to the whole of India. 

They are often relevant to certain regions.  But still in that region it should be possible for the Government and builders, architects, engineers and all those concerned to co-ordinate with the central pool of recognised technologies, the new technologies which have been developed and which are being applied in a dispersed manner all around the country.  This also refers a vast co-ordination as is being attempted here today in this Seminar.  I must say that I have missed one element here to which reference and emphasis has been made.  We have builders, we have engineers, we have architects, planners and other scientists.  But I do not think we have representatives of the consumers in this Seminar and I would suggest that in a future seminar we might make it more comprehensive and get some of the representatives of the actual consumers There are, I think, many organisations in this country who represent the interests of the consumers of the housing enterprise.
         
I think that you have taken a very very important initiative in organising the seminar together with it.  You are also having an exhibition of housing concepts and housing techniques and materials.  With these together this is a complete seminar and it represents a co-ordinated assault on this immense problem of housing in our country.  I want to congratulate you for conceiving and for organising the Seminar.  I am sure that your deliberations would help in resolving most of the problems and also as it has been said, in adding new dimensions to the National Housing Policy that has been declared. May I wish you every success in your deliberations in this very vital Seminar that you have organised.

Thank you very much.