Bhubaneswar: Odisha Law, Works and Excise Minister Prithviraj Harichandan on Saturday called for adopting a 100-year vision for infrastructure development, with emphasis on durability, safety and disaster resilience.
Addressing the valedictory session of a national workshop on “Building Future Bharat with NBCS-2026” in Bhubaneswar, Harichandan stressed the need to reduce construction timelines while promoting green infrastructure, non-conventional building materials, IoT-based building monitoring and emerging technologies.
The workshop was organised jointly by the Odisha Chapter of the Indian Buildings Congress (IBC) and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).
During the event, IBC Governing Council member Manoranjan Mishra submitted consolidated policy recommendations from the seminar to the state administration. The recommendations included structural audits of buildings more than 10 years old, measures to address the shortage of trained and licensed structural auditors, and regular awareness and capacity-building programmes for effective implementation of NBCS-2026.
Experts at the workshop deliberated on construction and fire safety, disaster resilience, sustainable construction and quality procurement systems. Participants stressed the need for coordinated efforts to develop safe, sustainable, disaster-resilient and future-ready infrastructure in Odisha and across the country.
The workshop was attended by NBCS Committee Chairman Vasudevan Suresh, former Deputy Director General (Standardisation) Sanjay Pant, Director of Civil Engineering and Head of the NBC Unit Arun Kumar S, IBC Odisha State Chapter Chairman Bijay Chandra Tripathy, besides engineers from various government departments and institutions.
