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Building Technologies to Trades — Success stories from TARA Anand Choudhary anandc@sdalt.ernet.in This article highlights a technology based livelihoods initiative aimed to establish profitable building material enterprises in earthquake ravaged region of Kutch, Gujarat. T he January 2001, a major earthquake in Gujarat resulted in an immense need for reliable and safe shelter. Many donor driven or government supported programs transformed this need into a huge demand for building material and products. Responding to this demand, Development Alternatives (DA)-CARE Livelihood Project established nine building material enterprises (BMEs) in the worst affected talukas of Kutch, namely Anjar, Bhachau and Rapar.The immediate objective of the initiative was to supply quality building products to the large parent rehabilitation program (FICCI-CARE Gujarat Rehabilitation Project, FCGRP) and later to the quality conscious, cost-sensitive open market. The project team performed following tasks as part of enterprise establishment and development process:
The criteria for the selection of the equipment included qualities like: good compaction and vibration to achieve high density, capability to produce multi-products like walling blocks, paving blocks and toilet blocks, and reliability of machines. Concrete block equipment, which produces high quality durable concrete products suitable for earthquake resistant construction, was supplied by TARA for the Gujarat entrepreneurs. These enterprises have provided 72 direct and 27 indirect jobs and are firmly supporting the rehabilitation process. With the use of high quality equipment and adequate training, these enterprises are producing quality building material. Based on the consistent performance, many of these entrepreneurs received appreciation from various construction contractors engaged in different reconstruction projects and also established strong business linkages in the open market. In the long run, these entrepreneurs intend to increase their capacity by multiplying the production and diversifying into new concrete products. Case study of entrepreneurs in Gujarat Babubhai and Khimjibhai setup their enterprise in village Ambapar "After the earthquake, many donor driven rural housing projects started in our villages. When we came to know that new houses would be rebuild using concrete blocks, we sensed this as a potential business opportunity. At the same time, DA-CARE project team approached the group of volunteers working for the village rehabilitation program for selection of entrepreneurs for their livelihoods project. After the initial round of selection, both our projects were finally selected on the basis of our past experience in construction. "
"The project has provided us versatile equipment, to cater to the market for a long time and the know-how to produce good quality construction material. We got the equipment on a 25% subsidy and 75% interest free loan basis and also received financial support for infrastructure and construction of the production unit. The major decision for us was arrangement of the working capital, keeping in mind the complete production cycle, including the duration for curing. It amounted to about 50-60% of the equipment cost. We managed it partly on our own and partly from friends and relatives and set up the unit. Immediately after the initial training and learning phase, we achieved consistency in the quality. Now, we are supplying solid and hollow concrete blocks in our village for individual house construction, in the neighbouring villages for the NGO supported reconstruction and paving blocks in Anjar town for small private construction."
At the time of reporting, the enterprise was running profitably and had supplied more than 60,000 blocks for individual or government or NGO supported reconstruction activities, in the first 5 months of operation. These products sold by the enterprise would be equivalent to the market value of about nine lakh rupees, which is about ten times of the loan component. q
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