Housing statistics, official or otherwise, confirm that the number of families that are homeless or living in structures that need upgradation is likely to be approximately 30 million by the turn of the century.

There are three basic premises upon which the thoughts contained in this article are written:

People build homes, they do not consume housing. The best evidence of this is that over 95 per cent of addition to housing stock is through non-formal building material producers and village masons. Therefore, the ultimate objectives of any initiative aimed at improving shelter conditions on a large scale, particularly those that are designed to enhance supply of cost-effective building material through the promotion of technology, should be:

Even though these three conditions may seem obvious to planners, practitioners and administrators the fact is that over the last five decades, government has supported research institutions that isolate R & D from economic reality, paid scant attention to the second and actually worked against achieving the third by portraying housing as a welfare measure.
 

Government action over the years has been extremely well intentioned. Rural housing has been a high priority area with regular increases in budgetary support, improved programmes, more effective implementation and much closer monitoring. Sadly however, all of its efforts put together have not had much impact on shelter conditions. Even positive estimates show that they do not account for more than 5 per cent of addition to housing stock. We must ask ourselves why and understand the underlying reasons that prevent these programmes from being more meaningful.

Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that despite the enormous advantage that the government has because of its widespread reach, existing infrastructure and human resources, its programmes are limited to target oriented scheme-based supply of houses. Awas Yojanas (housing schemes):

Above all, the most significant shortcoming is that government schemes do not have the capacity to penetrate local building economies. There are no components within these schemes that make contact with and provide catalytic input to the real builders in India- people themselves.

It is vitally important that government initiatives in housing begin to reach and strengthen the vast number of non-formal building material producers, masons and small contractors who are in fact, the only means available to the poor and low-income groups for improved shelter. When developed into micro-enterprises, they are the best and perhaps only means to deliver building material and pre-fabricated elements on a widespread, decentralised scale at a rate that actually closes the housing gap. These builders have distinct advantages:

One may, on the other hand, legitimately ask why, with all these advantages, the building material producers and village masons have not been able to provide adequate shelter. The answer is that they also have serious shortcomings, the biggest being that they do not have the capacity to meet increased and changing demand from a depleted and significantly altered resource base. They cannot conduct their own research and development or invest in new technology packages and tools. Moreover, they operate in extremely depressed market conditions where people prefer to wait for housing benefits from the government.

These are shortcomings that the government can help remove by reorienting government effort and funding from just house building to technical, institutional and financial support for enterprise-based sustainable production systems within existing housing programmes. This shift in approach will revitalise housing processes.

"Technology options", in the form of complete packages, must :

These characteristics can be ensured by careful selection and upgradation of alternative building technologies.

Institutional Networks should accomplish the following tasks:

These activities can be divided between government agencies, R&D groups, building centres, the private sector, voluntary agencies, Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART) and non-governmental organisations.

Organisations such as the Development Alternatives Group, with in house innovation-production-marketing links and a strong business orientation, are the best suited for technology identification and development, production and marketing of equipment including training. Grassroots voluntary agencies are best suited for disseminating technology, especially to rural areas.

Financial Measures taken by government and other external funding agencies should :

The example of Micro-Concrete Roofing (MCR) technology offers a case study. The MCR tile, a product of R&D for the poor, offers the lowest cost pucca roof in India: quarter the cost of Reinforced Cement Concrete and half the cost of Asbestos Cement Concrete sheets when laid over local wood understructure. Extremely versatile MCR can cater to a variety of market segments on steel understructure or even as a cladding material. It is produced locally, and is environmentally sound.

The technology package creates building material and local jobs. A micro-enterprise can install a unit for only Rs 90,000, produce roofing material for 300 dwellings every year, provide seven jobs and get full return on investment in just 18 months. There are more than 120 units already operational, 85 of which are private businesses, with the rest being operated or supported by local voluntary agencies.

To date, over five million tiles have been installed on roofs in two years. This represents roughly 400,000 square metres of improved roofing and approximately Rs 90 million worth of goods and services bought by people without any subsidies.

The number of enterprises and their impact could have been much more with government support to: