Green India Save the nature by using fly ash bricks

Over the centuries, red clay bricks are being widely used for almost all
construction works like houses, offices, shops, boundary wall, apartments,
etc. Its widespread use and lack of knowledge of any other proper
substitute building material has made it the only choice among people,
builders and construction labours. But, very few of them are aware about
the bad effects of manufacturing process of red clay bricks on
environment.
Red clay bricks are manufactured by consuming rich fertile soil and
heated in the kiln by burning huge quantities of coal. The rich fertile soil is
excavated from the top layer of agricultural land, making it barren in near
future. It is estimated that a single red clay brick kiln makes 15-20 acres
of agricultural land into a barren land in a single season. These activities
must be stopped in order to prevent our valuable fertile agricultural lands
from being converted into barren lands, with immediate effect. In Northern
and Eastern part of the country, a red brick kiln consumes around 1000
tonnes of coal in one season for maturing the bricks that is enough to
cause lot of air pollution and against the Green India.
IIT Roorkee has done research in this field and recommended to use fly
ash bricks instead of red clay bricks in majority of the construction
works. Even Govt. of India, from time to time, has taken lot of steps vide
Notifications but little impact is there on ground. Fly ash bricks are
manufactured by using fly ash generated from thermal power plants, river
sand and cement. It has more compressive strength than red clay bricks
and has no health hazard.
River sand is available at free of cost from our nature. It comes along with
the water from mountains during rainy season. It is very important to
excavate sand from rivers; otherwise it cause floods and also change the
route of river. Koshi floods occurred in 2008 in Bihar due to blockage of
river bed by sand upto 4 metres and it forced the river to change its
direction. If river sand is extracted timely, then it can save us from floods
and natural calamities. River sand can be used in massive quantities in
manufacturing of fly ash bricks.
It is very important to develop Power Sector for development of our
country. In Thermal Power Plant, power is generated by consuming coal
which provides huge quantity of Fly Ash as an industrial waste. Fly Ash is a
pollution hazard and its proper disposal/utilisation is very important. In the
manufacturing of fly ash bricks, the pollution hazard fly ash is the basic
raw material.

Despite having more benefits of fly ash bricks over red clay bricks, the
public acceptance is not there. The Government must run Public
Awareness Campaigns for promoting fly ash bricks which will help us in
saving our nature from air pollution and barren fertile lands. Government
may mandatorily recommend using of 100% fly ash bricks in all
government construction works and government sponsored schemes like
Housing for All, Indira Awas Yojna, Rajiv Awas Yojna, etc. Important
instructions and effective implementation by Government of India in this
regard is required to have a true Green India.