dequate
Shelter for All has been a recurring refrain and housing gap
calculations have long dominated the rural housing discussions at policy
debates. This gap has translated into funds and targets for social
housing with recent emphasis on land and skill building. The central
government has been dialogue with the states asking them to formulate
state level housing policies or guidelines drawings upon lesson from
southern states for the north on how the targets are being achieved. In
this whole debate the concerns of materials – stone, brick, sand,
aggregates, water, steel and cement and the energy required to produce
and distribute these is missing. The discussions on "cost effective
construction", alternate technologies, appropriate building systems etc.
are governed primarily by the demand for reducing cost of construction.
And when the "cost" of these materials in the short run does not compare
with RCC and backyard brick based construction, these are promptly put
on the back-burner for "NGOs to experiment with and provide largely
non-up-scaled models". While this debate forgets the lesson that large
private sector teaches us again and again, that costs are largely a
factor of efficiencies in delivery and aggregation and base cost of many
industrial materials is in fact heavily subsidized fact; it also fails
to consider energy subsidies to fossil fuel based production of cement
and steel and inadequate ecological valuation of soil, stone and ore
extraction
There are compelling reasons
why a rapidly growing "resources gap" must enter the debate on housing
provision. Soil for brick production conflicts with agriculture use in
many parts of the country. Sand extraction from rivers or mining has
serious implications on water and land ecologies. Extraction of stone in
many parts of Karnataka and Rajasthan has destroyed whole hillocks
changing natural drainage systems. The scale of "housing gap" coupled
with the "growth factor" in both rural housing and rural infrastructure
is only going to exacerbate this demand on already scarce resources.
What then is the solution?
Building pucca implies some amount of resource extraction and
energy for processing – thus demands on material and energy resources
for building material production and supply are inescapable if "adequate
shelter for all" be our goal. Clearly new materials will need to be
found and efficiencies in production and application such that "less
becomes more" will need to be our mantra. Building technologies and
construction systems such as stabilized earth blocks, fly-ash bricks,
hollow bricks, vertical shaft kiln based bricks, rat-trap masonry, ferro-cement
channels, filler slabs and funicular shell roofs, bamboo elements for
understructure for MCR tiles will need to be seen from the perspective
of desperately required resource efficiencies. This list is by no way
exhaustive, many more products and technologies are ready for the market
and many others will need to be developed and packaged.
All of these technologies and
construction practices also have additional benefits of job creation and
local wealth generation, are amenable to decentralised delivery thus
reducing costs. Recent studies that indicate considerable energy savings
and reduced carbon foot-prints of buildings using these technologies
must enter the economic debate of construction costs.
Market promotion of
technologies will naturally consider demand factors and potential of
maximizing profits. This implies investments in supply efficiencies and
product promotion along with creation of servicing capabilities.
Corporate sector skills in market development and servicing in
partnership with public sector facilitation supported by innovating
financing for supply and demand creation are the way to go. Incentives
at producer and consumer end and not subsidies should be encouraged to
enhance the take-up of resource efficient ways of construction; and new
institutional forms that can service decentralized production and
delivery of regionally standardised products will be required.
Finally, a deeper consciousness
amongst decision makers, promoters and users regarding the ecological
fragility of our resource base must govern the choices we make.
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