Liby Johnson and R.V. Jayapadma

In the course of working with rural communities over the past twenty years, Gram Vikas1 has realised that for poor people owning a ‘pucca’ 2  house is always on the periphery of their dreams, their untold aspiration. The inability of the poor people to build better houses results from inadequate funds to build a better house, lack access to information on low cost building technologies and the belief that a better house is an impossible dream for them.

The traditional rural houses built of mud, small timber, bamboo and thatch result in annual recurring costs of re-roofing and are extremely disaster prone. With, jungle grass - the most important roofing material - becoming less available people are forced to purchase paddy straw or other materials. This causes a large outflow from the already precarious finances of the household. The annual expenditure on re-roofing, which is anywhere between Rs. 1000 to Rs. 3000 per household (50% of the annual cash income, in most cases) is extremely burdensome. Restricted access to forests, which has made collection of small timber and bamboo difficult, further aggravates the matter and is often associated with bribes to forest guards, and on some occasions even imposition of fines for illegal collection of Minor Forest Products.

Gram Vikas has been involved, for the past seven years, in facilitating a housing programme for the communities that it works with. Initially Gram Vikas facilitated the flow of financial resources from different government agencies (like, Indira Awas Yojana) to the beneficiaries. However, this leads to sub-optimal people's participation as the houses are looked at as free goods.

Around the same time Gram Vikas also embarked on a rural water and sanitation programme called the Rural Health and Environment Programme (RHEP). The RHEP envisages the creation of village communities with adequate and proper access to sanitation infrastructure (toilets, bathing rooms and drainage) and protected water supply. The programme was designed to ensure participation of all village households in such a way that all the household's pre-requisite for the implementation of the programme was creation of a village corpus fund (on average, a contribution of Rs.1000 per household) that would ensure the extension of the services to new households that may come up. In addition, villagers are expected to provide all unskilled labour and material inputs.

The implementation of RHEP3 in all 67 villages benefited, at all stages, from rich participation by people who felt a sense of ownership towards the service. This was an important lesson to be learnt for the housing programme.

The strategy that Gram Vikas formed for the new phase of the housing programme with loan assistance from financial institutions (HDFC) has built in a substantial component to ensure participation by the beneficiaries. The focus is on making them clients to a service rather than beneficiaries.

Of a total estimated cost of Rs.46,500 per house (about 500 sq. ft), Gram Vikas facilitates a loan of Rs.31,500 from financial institutions and beneficiaries meet the remaining expenses.

The contribution by the beneficiaries, who are some of the poorest people in the State of Orissa, does not happen in one go. Rather, the preparation for building a new house starts at least two years before the actual construction starts. Given the fact that each of these families struggle even to meet their daily food requirements, they spend only such time that is available after meeting all their basic requirements, for preparing for the housing programme.

The preparations begin with brick making during the non-monsoon season. Other materials like sand, stones, wood for doors and windows are collected. This entire process takes at least two to three years. Once they feel that sufficient quantity of materials are in place, they inform Gram Vikas of their willingness to start the construction. During construction, they provide all unskilled labour free of cost, where as the loan amount is used for expenses related to hiring skilled labour, purchase of cement and steel and sanitary equipment for the toilets.

Essentially, the unskilled labour input would have meant that the main bread earners of the families spend most of their time working at the house site. In reality, the workload is shared by all households, thus enabling each and every family to devote the requisite time to meet their other basic requirements; a great tribute to community bonding indeed!

Synergistically operating with the housing programme is an effort to improve livelihood options in rural areas. Gram Vikas encourages all villagers to engage in profitable income generation activities, based on locally available resources and skills, to emerge from the orbit of poverty.

The livelihoods programme aims at:

A mix of short, medium and long term activities based on enhancing the capacity and returns from land, animal and bird and human resources, are promoted to evolve secure livelihoods. This is done in consonance with the local assets and resource base. Gram Vikas assists individuals in approaching banks for credit, accessing appropriate technical inputs, and marketing for remunerative returns. With an incremental income of Rs.50 per household per day, each household can set apart Rs.20 for repayment of their loans. The remainder may be used to meet the regular consumption requirements, and a small amount may even be saved.

Skill building is an integral component of the construction process in the villages. Interested youth are encouraged to undergo training as masons. Starting in June 2000, over 30 women have been trained as masons in Ganjam, and today they can be seen cycling to the work sites. The confidence and enthusiasm of these women is spreading to other areas as well. Gram Vikas has also started training educated local youth as "barefoot engineers" to create a large pool of quality resources in the region.

Through the multi pronged approach of improving the living conditions in villages, enhancing local livelihood options, improving access to health and education services a process of ‘reverse migration’ is encouraged. Poor people who earlier migrated to far off towns and cities to work as wage labourers in de-humanising conditions are encouraged to build a better life in their own villages. There is a sense of pride that the people now feel in being associated with their villages.

Gram Vikas is proud of the fact that it is being able to demonstrate that even the poorest people are willing to and do contribute to any activity that may help them improve their standard of living and the overall quality of life. What the poor of Orissa have shown is that provided the right kind of inputs they can help themselves in improving their standard of living, thus taking another step away from a life of poverty and deprivation. q

The authors work with Gram Vikas, Orissa

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