Micro-Concrete Roofing

Micro-Concrete Roofing

A Status Report

There is a growing feeling in development circles that "Appropriate technology" must reach levels of acceptance similar to those of industrial products. It is perhaps the only chance we have of moving towards a sustainable future. Unfortunately not many of us have an idea of what it takes to successfully develop, produce or market products and processes that have the potential to improve standards of living.

The last two decades have seen a vast array of alternative technologies solutions being offered. Innumerable delivery mechanisms have been devised, discussed and tried out. Only a handful have worked. These too, when compared for example with the spread of consumer durables, have been woefully inadequate. Almost everyone is struggling to find a dissemination strategy for widespread acceptance of their product or technology. Some limit themselves to publishing articles, other agencies manage to install them in their local areas of influence and many peddle their wares in the hope of official sponsorship or subsidies. Very rarely have multi-partner networks been used to effect rapid propagation of a particular technology.

It is with this background in mind that the Shelter Group at Development Alternatives (DA) is closely monitoring the activities of thirteen operational Micro-concrete roofing tile production centres in India. It seems likely that they will achieve a considerable degree of success as the disseminating ends of an institutional chain that also includes the Swiss Centre for Appropriate Technology (SKAT), DA and Technology and Action for Rural Advancement (TARA) as the other links.

Fibre based cement mortars have been used in a number of ways to form a good roof cladding material. There have been significant advances over the last twenty years in research on mortar mixes, equipment and production methods. SKAT has been coordinated the efforts of agencies all over the world in the use of cement mortar tiles as an intermediate solution (between thatch on one hand and asbestos cement or galvanised iron on the other) to the roofing problem.

Global feedback has confirmed that fibre concrete roofing tiles have a few distinct advantages. They are:

In India, SKAT has provided continuing support to the research programme at Development Alternatives. Theirs is in fact, the first level of collaboration in the institutional chain that we have talked of earlier. In over six years of R&D work at DA, the Shelter Group has:

As soon as DA had frozen (till the next interaction) its design of the product, production equipment and process, TARA stepped in with its manufacturing and marketing process to ensure the easy availability of tile making kits. Simultaneously, a nation wide search began for people or agencies interested in working with Micro-concrete roofing tile technology. Market surveys were conducted and enquiries were sent out to agencies that had the potential to manufacture tiles and make sure they got through to the people.

The first few units were set up by voluntary agencies in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh - one of them a centre for rehabilitation of leprosy patients. These units took on regular production but the tiles were used largely in housing work controlled by the agencies themselves. DA was still on the lookout for an economically viable independent unit.

The first real breakthrough came in the person of Mr. Devendra Sharma of Etawah in Uttar Pradesh. He had come to Development Alternatives to attend a training programme on low cost earth construction which included a session on Micro-concrete roofing. All said and done the credit goes to Mr. Sharma for taking the plunge and setting himself up as India’s private entrepreneur in the field of MCR. He offers villagers within a radius of approximately forty kilometres an installed roof at the highly competitive price of only Rs. 6 6o Rs. 8 per square foot of area. In just over one year of operation his team has put up more than seventy thousand square feet of roofs. Mr. Sharma has of course already recovered his capital investment of Rs. 25,000.

Going to a site one day
I fell day dreaming on the way
"Today what we need as such
is a warm homely natural touch.
Of all the buildings that we make,
all we get are cold flakes.
'What about TIMBER?' "
I thought about
it got me spinning round and round.
Timber's such a wonderful thing,
it almost gives the feel of spring.
Going to my studio that day,
I was humming all the way
"In timber I would design!"
On the road was my favourite pine
I stopped short in my tracks--
"This minute thing I would attack?"
The timber project thus was scrapped.

Going to a site one day
I fell day dreaming on the way
"All around me are R.C.C. jungles,
the biggest of mankind's bungles.
'What do I do(?) about this mess,
that hurts more and helps less?' "
It chilled me to the bone,
and suddenly the answer dawned-
STONE!
Yes,
Sandstone, granite, kota and slate
will become my inseparable mates.
Interiors, exteriors and in between too
it shall be stone thru and thru.
Stone houses got sold so fast-
it had to be too good to last.

I was such a busy man
picking stone from high and low land
then going to a site one day-
I decided I need a holiday.
Up-to the mountains I took my car
I had not even driven far
when I saw huge landslides
and stone being peeled off mountain sides-
'What are you doing - workmen?'
'This is for Mr. X's den.'
''I' had designed the den - I remembered
I was getting the mountain dismembered!
Oh! with shame I wanted to flee
or at least hide behind a tree
-still I drove calmly back
and gave stone projects the sack.

To be continued

The Etawah initiative is being replicated in north-east Bihar where M/s Manju Micro-concrete products have set themselves up a manufacturers and suppliers of MCR tiles. In Fatehpur district of Uttar Pradesh, a voluntary agency Manava Kalyan Pratisthan has launched a comprehensive project for the transfer of MCR technology with financial assistance from the Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Appropriate Technology (A Govt. of India body). They plan to set up a micro enterprise for tile production, the initial production of which will be used to roof 46 low cost demonstration houses. In Andhra Pradesh, things have also started happening on a bigger scale, where m/s Nagarjuna Techtrans Pvt. Ltd., have entered into agreement with DA and TARA for equipment and technical assistance in setting up twenty-four units in eight districts of the state. These units will feed an already existing distribution network for building materials.

These examples may not yet qualify as success stores and are probably inadequate if Micro-concrete roofing tiles are to make a mark in the country. They do however hint at the combination of institutions, each playing its role, that may be required to bring about widespread use of a technology that is accepted to be appropriate for our conditions. The Shelter Group has in fact already started pinning down the ingredients needed for a successful enterprise in tile making. Here are a few

Entrepreneurial skill; a person must have basic education, organizational capacity and an instinct for business not many of us do).

Initial finance; about Rs. 40,000 which can be borrowed because returns are substantial and quick.

Good cash flow; it helps if the tile making venture is linked to other sources of income such as cement concrete flower pots, cement water tanks etc. or even a poultry Farm.

Quality control and integrity in input of materials are very important.

The target group; aim for the very large segment of people who want a good over one room but just cannot spend more that Rs. 999. Four figure sales are rare.

Shrashtant Patara
with report from the MCR team

At DA the message seems to get clearer:
There are people we can work with to make sure more and more homes
have access to improved technology. A relationship in which
each partner plays its role to the best of its ability