Ecological Rural Habitat: The Change Required
and the Potential Change Makers

The Challenge of Housing: Shortage and Demand
India remains predominantly rural despite the rapid pace of urbanisation. Trends of urbanisation and urban migration indicate that 65% of the India’s population will still be residing in rural areas in 2025. And, even if rural population shows a decline in percentage terms – there is a steady growth in absolute numbers. Rural housing shortage too shows a similar increasing trend. Despite five decades of social housing programmes, rural housing gap figures stand today at a horrendous 47.43 million for the period 2007-2012 (assessment by the Ministry of Rural Development, reflected in the report to the Planning Commission for the 11th Five Year Plan). Out of the above shortage, 90% is estimated for those below the poverty line.

At the field level, the clamour for the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY), the Government of India’s flagship social housing scheme is a clear indication of the demand for housing being much greater than the supply. There is a need to address the gap between housing shortage and demand on one hand and the existing availability of houses, which is primarily through the subsidy based IAY scheme, on the other. The above figures translate into approximately 950 million sq m of area to be added till 2012 with an additional annual requirement of about 1 million sq m to meet the annual shortage, considering a minimum of 20 sq m of pucca housing area per, as per the IAY norms (although, we know that a rural family and its livestock requires more than double the minimum prescribed area for a dignified living).
 
The rural society, however, does not only consist of only the poor and those below the poverty line. The middle classes and upper income groups that constitute almost 30% of the rural society are also part of the housing demand – not from State but from the market. An assessment by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) projects an increase in pucca and semi-pucca housing stock by approximately 1.76% per year under the business as usual scenario and 1.9% under a high growth scenario as also an increase in kuccha stock by 0.7% in the same year. These are conservative estimates, taking into consideration the lack of facilitative supports that would / could lead to acceleration (NCAER; Rural Housing in India: Challenges and Opportunities, study sponsored by Holcim Ltd, 2009). This would further mean an addition of 720million sq m of space within the 11th plan period alone. And this figure increases manifold every time a natural disaster strikes and large tracts of rural India are affected.

Even if we consider only the conservative ‘current shortage’ figures and the incremental shortage of 9 lakh houses per year estimated by the Ministry of Rural Development, the problem of lack of shelters cannot be tackled even in the next 20 years at the current level of coverage of only 15 lakh IAY houses per annum. And this will not be only because of limited annual funds but also due to severe building material resource constraints that have already reduced the access of the rural societies to quality housing.

The Environmental Challenge and the Rural Potential

The new housing stock and conversion from kuccha into pucca houses will put tremendous pressure on land, materials, and water and energy resources. Taking estimates for simple specifications for construction of pucca houses in the Business as Usual scenario (as per trends in construction) we can safely assume that rural India will need to consume 1700 million metric tonnes of cement, 14 x 106 million fired bricks, 300 million tones of steel and 2000 million litres of water for basic housing alone. The additional infrastructure and public facilities required to ensure the rural communities a dignified basic living and working environment will probably treble this figure.

It is simple arithmetic to calculate the energy requirements, quantum of mining, river dredging, stone quarrying, timber extraction and CO2 emissions that will be a result of this necessary growth and development in the near future. This requirement will only grow as efforts for development of rural areas – rural incomes, rural infrastructure and livelihoods options – are strengthened through the Aam Aadmi (common man) agenda of the present government.

So while, concerns of mitigating climate change and CO2 emissions prioritise ‘green buildings’ for urban areas – ecological construction that goes beyond CO2 emissions and energy requirements and addresses resource conservation is really the need of the hour. Already, large sections of mountains have been lost to quarrying, large tracts of agricultural fields have been converted into bricks, and river ecologies are being disturbed due to sand mining and forests being destroyed for construction. It can be argued that this is mainly for the consumption in urban areas – but are we not looking for urban amenities and quality of life in rural areas as well? We also know that if rural habitat development follows the trends of the present urban development models, not only will we surpass the requirement of 1.5 times India’s resources (Ashok Khosla, address to Development Alternatives, 2009) to develop we will probably need twice or more of the present level of material, energy and water resources. Therefore it would be a relevant question to ask whether rural development and enhancement in the quality of life of rural societies be done in a manner that reduce environmental impacts locally as well globally? As the negative impacts on the local ecology, water-soil-forest regimes are primarily in rural areas affecting rural lives and livelihoods, can, in this instance, rural construction take a lead in providing answers to ecological construction?

The Potential

It has been demonstrated, that rural housing and habitat development need-not follow current urban development models – examples of the Development Alternatives Head Quarters Building in New Delhi and the work of Biome Environmental Solutions Pvt. Ltd. And BCIL in Bangalore have demonstrated that ecological construction systems and technologies initially thought to be developed for ‘rural areas’ are domain free with efficient and ultra modern urban applications – reversing the trend.

Within the sector of (rural) habitat construction there is a growing menu of technology options that reduce virgin material consumption, use less energy for processing, optimise water use, while providing quality construction. Besides basic construction technologies, building systems for sanitation, water harvesting, water recycling, clean cooking, domestic lighting that can actually positively contribute positively to eco-systems of human settlements are now available.

It is felt that rural India presents a tremendous potential for promoting and applying ecological construction that can provide benefits not just of quality of life improvement, increased economic productivity due to safe and healthy living environment but also of larger resource conservation, clean water systems and indeed regeneration. Even large business houses that are exploring the ‘fortune at the base of the pyramid’ are expressing the feeling that the big opportunity lies in rural India – to make that quantum jump towards low-carbon development, in factor 10 reduction of fossil energy consumption and resource conservation while providing for enhanced quality of life. These new models of technologies, of institutional systems, of financing will find the optimum soil for seeding in rural areas – not yet encumbered by mind-sets that prioritise consumption over conservation.

The task of housing the millions in rural India in a safe and sustainable manner, however, needs to deal with the twin challenges of facilitating affordable shelter as well as ecological construction at a large scale.

Rural India is a large but poor market and traditional ‘market development theories’ are finding it difficult to reach there with traditional goods and services- let alone new eco-friendly technologies and techniques. The basic question is how this can be made possible. With more than 70% of India’s poor residing in rural areas that have poor access to information about new materials and technologies, bottlenecks of technical supports, no supply of eco-materials, inadequate skills and poor access to finance amongst many other development barriers such as inequities, poor governance capacities, etc. how can rural communities provide shinning examples of sustainable development that they have a potential for?

Lessons from the Ground

There are a few islands of success which provide us answers for this ‘how’. The Lok Awaas Yatra which has just concluded its first journey on September 12, 2009 this year has glimpsed some of these islands. While the Yatra explored some of the various solutions that have been used for construction, water supply, sanitation, domestic energy, it also met with the agents of change and discussed the processes that led to the change.

The Yatra has focused on the role of the Panchayats – as constitutionally mandated bodies for local development and governance, and as potential facilitators of ecological development in their villages. At the same time, it has examined the role of critical supporting stakeholders that must play a role to ensure a safe and sustainable habitat development. These being the rural communities, the technical resource centres, local banks, district authorities, schemes and programmes of the government, etc. This article looks at the potential within these local governance bodies to promote safe and sustainable habitat in rural India and their relationships with partners, consultants, service delivery agencies knowledge and information resources to plan, facilitate and manage this endeavour.

The Agents and Partners in Change

The Panchayats, as elected bodies of the village, have amongst their 29 functions, the responsibility to facilitate adequate shelter for all in the village, total sanitation, clean drinking water, electricity, roads and basic infrastructure and safety against disasters (The ‘11th schedule’ of the amendment specifies 29 areas of responsibility, covering all key aspects of village life, which states may transfer to the panchayats along with sufficient resources and decision-making authority). The Panchayats are expected to plan annually to strive towards this habitat development along with other development needs of land and water management, livelihood creation etc. They have at their disposal, means such as the central and state government schemes, plan funds through defined annual resource envelops other special funds such as the Backward Area Grant Funds, NREGS, etc. Our visit to some of the villages in Marathwada described later in this newsletter, tell us that there is no shortage of finance – smart ways of accessing schemes, efficiency, transparency and accountability in utilisation of funds in an equitable manner is the key. Experiences in Hivre Bazaar and Bahirgaon have both shown how various schemes could be leveraged and integrated to provide toilets, clean drinking water, village streets, pucca houses etc.

Technical Know-how: Finance and Community Mobilisation

Finance is clearly not the only requirement. As one participant from Bundelkhand pointed out, ‘we begin with information’. This, especially in the case of eco-friendly options, is a long way from reaching village India. What options are available so that housing, sanitation, rural energy can be clean and green?

The village family knows how the changing climate is impacting them? Why water levels are going down, why ground water at many places cannot be drunk anymore, why difficult choices between soil for brick making or fields for agriculture have to be made. They know why they need ecological options and why traditional means of development will not do any more. What they need to know is where to get the know-how to be able to provide for basic needs as well as safeguard these essential life systems. They also need to know whether these new systems will work. Will they be able to manage them, control them and plan with them?

The village energy committee leader from Rampura put it very succinctly as he explained the revolutionary step that the village took in refusing the long promised - never received state electricity and opted for solar. He said: ‘We know that there is only 8.7KW that we can generate at this time – we have to therefore prioritise so that basic electricity needs of all families are taken care of, but we can control it’.

The village knows that energy needs are bound to grow, that conflicts on use will happen and that additional capacity will need to be brought in. As the village grapples with management concerns, the significant point strikes home that reaching till this stage, where every household has a light in the evening through a system that is not only clean and green but is quite within their control is a complex interaction of technical know-how, social mobilisation and financial inputs brought together by different stakeholders. Even more challenging will be the continued management of this infrastructure and its growth on the green path. That the village families took readily to computer education for their children as one of the first initiatives that electricity made possible – indicates that quantum jumps can be made very quickly once barriers of ‘traditional development models’ break down.

Technical Resource Centres: Understanding and Transferring Know-how

Why are so many Panchayats still struggling to access information and know-how about potential low-carbon models of development? ‘Where are the technical resource-centres?’ was the rejoinder that came in quite naturally from a Yatri from Vidarbha as he explored the brick technology resource centre in Datia. There have to be many more centres such as the Centre of Science for Villages in Wardha or TARAgram in Orchha that offer technical supports to villages for habitat development – especially eco-habitat development. And these centres need to network with each other, share new knowledge and exchange information that can be made available to rural areas. These centres need to be located in rural areas. A typical centre can directly reach out to a district at the most. A spoke and wheel format with state level centres linked to district and block level technical resource centres need to be set up. The Panchayati Raj system again gives us the answers. Nodal state-level technical resource centres for eco-habitat should have offices at district and block level actively reaching out to individual villages. Is it not an irony that the building centres that showed promise in this direction have all but died out? And, it is so natural that the rural building centres scheme that was closed pre-maturely is in great demand in every forum that discusses rural habitat.

It is in this chain of technical knowledge regarding eco-habitat options that the role of district level officers, engineers of the line departments becomes critical. It would not be too far out to say that in the first days of the Yatra, the accompanying district officials were skeptical if not totally dismissive of the new technologies and ways of working. Implementation of village development plans is largely in their domain today. The specification of what will be constructed and how, is also controlled by engineers and development officials at distinct and block levels. The buy-in towards eco-development from this (rather disinterested) group of people is critical. But, we have seen in Hivre Bazaar and in Bahirgaon that enlightened Panchayats and committed local NGOs can create momentum in this rather conservative and slow moving administrative machinery. We saw that accompanying Panchayats from Bundelkhand by the end of the Yatra were engaging with their co-travelers from the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) in discussing precisely such possibilities in the session on ‘Mere gaon mein kya ho sakta hai?’ (What can be done in my village?)

Enterprises and Livelihood Infrastructure for Supplying Eco-products

While the centres of technical resources and engineers from the DRDA can provide information on what is possible in terms of eco-technologies, they can facilitate villages in their catchment to plan for such systems and train local artisans in building safe and eco-friendly houses and toilets; these centres are often not equipped to deal with the production and delivery of eco-products and services at the required scale up to the doorstep of the rural customer. Reaching eco- building materials, the bio-gas units, the smokeless chulhas, etc., along with linked services for application in a financially viable manner requires enterprise and business initiative. Here comes the role of the local entrepreneur – small businesses that can manufacture and supply eco-goods and services at a reasonable profit. These entrepreneurs, as we have seen, can be groups of village women – SHGs that can set up manufacturing of roofing tiles, toilet pans, brick tiles door frames etc. or they could be small individual businesses. They need training, capital, marketing support, demonstration possibility land and infrastructure to set up production.

Large private industry with financial and marketing muscle linked with small manufacturers and local artisans is a potential facilitated by the panchayats can provide interesting models to untap the potential at the base of the pyramid. The investment in Rampura solar village by industry is helping them understand the market models to reach and service distant village communities. Similar investments in decentralised production of eco-materials could open up vast markets for the industry. Panchayats can facilitate centres of production of eco-goods by enabling land and infrastructure. Kuthumbakkam in Tamil Nadu is one such Panchayat (which we hope to visit in a subsequent Yatra) where local production of compressed earth blocks by a youth group supplies the materials for house construction this and neighboring villages. The Rural Entrepreneurship Zone Centre in Datia, currently facilitated by Development Alternatives, is another such model that Panchayats can adopt. A similar model is the Ashraya Building materials and Services Bank in Cuttack. Facilitating land and infrastructure to groups or individual entrepreneurs manufacturing co-products for habitat plus promoting the use of these local materials in all public buildings, schools, Panchayat bhavans, community halls, shops, etc., and thereby demonstrating their potential and promoting their use is clearly within the Panchayat mandate.

Habitat Services Delivery at the Rural Doorstep

Last but certainly not the least, perhaps the most critical link in the chain is the person who delivers the service to the rural family. The artisan, the mason is the guide, mentor and advisor for housing and habitat construction is a very significant rural market player. The local artisan who guides the village family on what is pucca, what materials to buy, and how much. Unless this last role player understands how to construct ecologically – has the requisite skills to do so - eco-habitat will not be constructed. And unless he/she is convinced about its benefits not only ecological, but also of quality of performance and cost to the family and enhanced value for his/her services – eco-habitat will not be recommended. And, unless there are enough promoters of eco-habitat, the artisan will not have a critical market mass to hone his skills and will thus not find it worth his/her while to build ecologically. The Panchayats, the district administration and the producer of eco-products and the industry that benefits from eco-products and services delivery all have a critical role of promoting eco-habitat here.

In Conclusion

The Panchayati Raj system has yet to unfold its potential. Even 16 years after the 73rd and 74th amendment of the constitution, a majority of panchayats are still trying to find their way regarding the what, and how of basic development. Most do not even have the essential institutional systems in place and activated necessary for development planning, management and monitoring leave alone facilitating ‘low-carbon’ development. What then triggered development processes in Malumbra, Hivre Bazaar, Bahirgaon, Rampura and Gopalpura – was it only the Panchayats? No, supporting the Panchayats were the educated village youth, a mobilised village community and supportive local NGOS desirous to make a change. Partnering with this committed group were local banks, industry and technical resource centres.

These partners and partnerships will not materialise for the poorest alone, with social institutions and local governance bodies as the caretakers of the interest of the poor, rural markets and rural consumers as a whole will need to be addressed. Today, the role of the Panchayat in this whole process of lakhs and lakhs of one room units being constructed for the poorest is only that of selection of families and (in some places) of ensuring that monies are utilised. We have seen that Panchayats can go much further in promoting eco-habitat for all in rural areas in partnership with facilitating and supporting stakeholders. q

Zeenat Niazi
zniazi@devalt.org
 

Back to Contents