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People’s Process and Technology
Shrashtant Patara
Ask
an engineer what kind of a house he can build in a village with
thirty thousand Rupees and the response will, almost invariably be,
"One room and a cooking space covering about 15 square meters if…
and yes if, bricks, cement and steel are easily available". In
sharp contrast, try asking a rural family of five and their
relatives what they can do with the same amount of money. Solutions
emerge that not only maximize the use of such an external resource
but also tap the latent potential of the family itself and the
village community. The results can be astounding with the given
critical information, material support and access to skilled
workers, rural households can build two and often three room homes
as compared with our 30 square meters space, with a toilet and water
tank as well. The lesson is self-evident.
My
colleagues and I at Development Alternatives have had the good
fortune to gain first hand insights into what makes people’s
processes in the area of habitat work. We have found that there is
a direct and undeniable correlation between user satisfaction and
user control in a rural housing programme. States that have allowed
beneficiaries to exercise a high level of discretion in the use of
Indira Awas Yojana (a Union Government Housing Scheme named after
the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi) and its variants have a much
better track record in terms of numbers of houses built, quality of
construction and subsequent use of the homes, with many families
making substantial additions to the core house.
In
housing processes, linked to livelihood activities amongst self help
groups, the act of taking a loan to build one’s home and managing
funds is so empowering and the results so effective that policy
makers are now compelled to include micro-credit and social
organization as necessary components of rural housing initiatives,
particularly if up-scaling is an imperative to reach large numbers.
In
addition to providing an analytical overview of the habitat sector
in India, this issue highlights post earthquake reconstruction of
initiatives of a select group of community based organizations in
Gujarat. Once again, it is clear that these efforts were relevant
to the needs of their target groups, effective in making long
lasting impact and efficient in delivery because of the space given
by each organization to people. People who, (with the right kind of
capacity building inputs), made decisions on what they were going to
build, how they were going to build and with what materials and
technology.
Now,
more than even before, it has become crucial for the development
sector to shift from project frameworks based on the
“problem-solution”, “need-response”, “demand-supply” way of
structuring action research to a new approach that recognizes
people’s “strengths and initiatives”. In the India Brick Project,
for example, our team did not ask brick workers of the Datia region
what their “problems” or “needs” were. Discussion on “strengths”
within the community led to the design of an initiative where in
four workers families get together to become joint owners of a brick
clamp. Their next step will be to integrate technological
improvements into their brick production processes.
Our
team hopes that this issue will contribute to the debate on people’s
processes and control over technology. In the 1980’s, when we began
our work in shelter, a colleague put up a poster that read:
“Villagers do not consume housing, they build homes”. How true.
And yet, the tragedy is that all of us seem to want to learn this
simple lesson over and over again.
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