| Capacity Building for large scale dissemination of CEEF technologies |
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Research and Development agencies, NGO’s like Development Alternatives, Gram Vikas, govt bodies like HUDCO and BMTPC are all committed to promotion of CEEF technologies. The more popular technologies among them are : Rat-Trap bond brick masonry, Compressed Earth Block walls, arches and domes, Micro Concrete Roofing Tiles, Ferrocement products, RCC filler slap etc. These technologies, besides serving the purpose of energy savings, cost reduction and environment friendliness provide tremendous opportunities for creating livelihoods. With a view to widely promoting such technologies, the aforesaid organisations are geared to work out strategies that will help achieve the mission. Capacity building is a key strategy to large scale dissemination of technologies, without which it is impossible to reach a wider audience. Capacity building and training in CEEF technologies is required at all levels of construction personnel from project manager, engineer and architects, supervisors right up to masons and artisans. Technical training in CEEF technologies are provided by several organisations who have the mission to promote them, including a few star building centres. Building centres are set up in all parts of our country to play a key role in dissemination of CEEF technologies. Unfortunately many centres are not in a position to fulfil the purpose due to inadequate or even lack of capacity building. But, the building centre movement in Kerala and other Southern states of India has achieved great success in building up technical capacity of masons and supervisors mainly on Laurie Baker technologies The training needs are growing in other CEEF technologies also. It is worth mentioning the national technical training strategy adopted by Development Alternatives in the case of Micro Concrete Roofing Tiles (MCR). The strategy focuses on building up a chain of self multiplying trainers by networking with partner organisations. DA has joined hands with local partners in several parts of the country with a view to large scale (wider) dissemination of technology: CART in Mysore, MITCON in Pune, MPCON in Gwalior and SRI in Ranchi. Several trainers have been developed through periodic training programmes who in turn train the entrepreneurs (producers and applicators). Why should applicators be focused on? The entrepreneurs, in the marketing terms, who are CEEF building material producers or applicators ought to be trained much beyond a simple skill upgradation exercise. Masons for example, if get trained and convinced of the viability of CEEF, can play a major and more effective role in the dissemination of technologies than organisations and other individual market players. Artisans are the agents of change and are in a position to influence the demand. But there is a very little demand for training from artisans, inspite of an evident need. The fact that masons, supervisors and engineers are trained in some NGO’s does not reflect a demand from user, but from NGO itself, in the interest of bringing down cost of construction. The user demand is almost zilch. Only artisans can bring out this change. At present, masons do not foresee a future in CEEF technologies which is why they do not pose a demand for training in them. Some key reasons are :
The last factor is a chicken and egg problem. The visibility of CEEF technologies is restricted to only a few regions or pockets and to some technologies because construction workers are not trained adequately to create an impact in the region. Conversely, the masons and artisans do not feel there is a good market for them in CEEF construction, as there is no visibility. So, the capacity building or dissemination of technologies cannot be dealt with in isolation. The value of a trained mason should be higher in the market. From the point of view of capacity building , the government must intervene and effect changes in policies related to building construction. Govt policies must be framed to include CEEF in schedule of rates and standards, validate technologies, put an embargo an construction based on only conventional materials, allocate funds as a proportion of building estimate to cater for cost of masons training and so on. Certification is yet another crucial issue that can change the system totally in favour of CEEF technology dissemination. Only certified masons should be employed in construction. While electricians and similar other engineering trades are highly respected and demanded in a company, masons are not seen in that light. The bad quality of construction in most cases is a result of this of this attitude. Certification of masons, once introduced may as well cover CEEF technologies in the curriculum. Then the demand from artisans will grow and technologies will reach the masses. A long way to go! q The
Author is a specialist - |
and there has
been a steady growth in building construction due to rising demand
for infrastructure. The demand for building materials is steeply
rising due to the widening housing gap. In the recent years, there
has been a drive to adopt cost-effective and environment friendly (CEEF)
building materials and technologies in order to augment the supply
of building materials. It does not require any further explanation
why CEEF technologies are preferred by technology promoters and NGO’s
who are the prime movers, as they enable sustainability while
fulfilling the demand.