Know About Green Rating in India: GRIHA

Concept of Green development is much talked about these days. Even in India, the government and NGOs are extending their support in its favor and providing all the necessary assistance. Getting your home a green rating helps you increase its value a lot. In India, green houses and buildings are rated based on GRIHA.

 GRIHA is one of the rating systems used in India and is the acronym used for Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment. It attempts to minimize the use of resources in consumption, waste generation and thus helps in making a fine ecological balance.

GRIHA is a tool that helps people and townships assess their building against some accepted benchmarks and can decide how much resources they are saving. Property in Greater Noida also focuses on green development by constructing green Flats in Greater Noida.

Let's try to know more about GRIHA and its implication.
Evolution: GRIHA

With the rapid growth of population in India, there is a pressure on availability of resources and are on a verge of extinction. The availability of water in especially in urban areas has diminished with time and is an area of concern. Hence a need for balanced and sustainable development was felt. In order to develop in a sustainable manner, several policies and mechanisms have been devised.

Basic features: GRIHA
This system is developed to rate the buildings still in their inception stage which is assessed on its predicted performance since inception to operations. This is assessed in three stages.

1. Pre-construction stage in which features like proximity to transport, type of soil, flora and fauna is assessed.

2. Planning and construction stages in which resource utilization efficiency, resource recovery etc are assessed.

3. Building operation and maintenance stage in which issues related to operation and maintenance of building is monitored.
Eligibility to Apply for a Certificate

Any building still under the design and inception phase and covering more than 2500 square meters can apply for a GRIHA certificate. These buildings include residential towers and buildings, office spaces, hospitals, hotels, shopping complexes, institutions and so on, but any industrial units like factories and plants are not included in this.

Process of Application for a Certificate
First, you have to fill the online registration form for your property on the GRIHA website. Register at the pre-design stage to clarify the construction issues.

Next, you are needed to submit soft copies of the documents pertaining to the criteria. The documents include all the details required for the clarification. The final step is the assessment, which is conducted by professionals and experts of Association for Development and Research of Social Habitats (ADaRSH).
Certification of a Building

The ADaRSH team first reviews with the mandatory criteria and reject the project if not up to the standards. The ADaRSH team evaluates green homes based on 34 criteria and rates them on scale of 1 to 100. These criteria fall under four sections with a particular aspect of building a green home.

1. Site Planning
GRIHA rates homes based on the different phases of site planning. This includes site selection, soil conservation, preservation of landscape, minimizing air pollution, provision of proper sanitary facilities for workers, and so on. There are a total of 24 points allotted for this section.

2. Building, Planning and Construction Stage
This is the most important criterion. This basically includes regulating water usage and water quality, optimization of energy demand and the operational performance of the building, implementation of renewable energy systems, renewable energy utilization, proper waste management system using environment-friendly construction materials, and so on. GRIHA has allotted a total of 68 points for this section.

3. Building Operation and Maintenance
This phase has only 8 points and includes the preparation of the energy audit and validation report and the protocol regarding operation and maintenance of the building.

4. Innovation
The final criterion is innovation. Four extra points are allotted to this innovation section. A green home can score these points if it implements new and innovative ideas on modes of alternative transportation, environmental education, and so on to conserve the environment.

GRIHA Star Ratings for Green Homes
A home needs to have a minimum of 50 points to be GRIHA-certified to be called as a green home. A home is awarded a particular star rating depending on the number of points it scores.

Points Scored by a Green Home & Star Rating
* 50-60 - 1 star
* 61-70 - 2 star
* 71-80 - 3 star
* 81-90 - 4 star
* 91-100 - 5 star

If you wish buy a home and want to save the environment as well you can go for Property in Greater Noida as it brings you this opportunity of sustainable living in its Flats in Greater Noida. This is a very good chance as the property is offering a lot of facilities and luxuries.