Rural Housing Developments in India

This is a paper prepared by me for the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore-CRERI Real Estate Research Initiative. The paper is intended as a overview of the affordable housing sector with special emphasis on India. Affordable Housing is fast taking centrestage in the national agenda. In India, affordable housing is a term largely used in the urban context.Affordable housing refers to any housing that meets some form of affordability criterion, which could be income level of the family, size of the dwelling unit or affordability in terms of EMI size or ratio of house price to annual income.
The demand drivers for affordable housing are several.Alongside the growth of the urban population, rising incomes have led to the expansion of the middle class. This has led to a spike in demand for housing that is affordable but includes basic amenities. The agencies working in the affordable housing sector can be classified into . the public sector and the private sector. Both are dogged by issues such as scarcity of land,scarcity of marketable land parcels,titling Issues, rising costs and regulatory concerns. The way forward calls for a collaborative multi-pronged multi-stakehoder approach.

conservation of natural resources. For uninterrupted supply of good quality of raw material agro- based industries solely depend on rural area/ agricultural production. Therefore it is imperative on the part of agro-industries to invest on rural development and integrate their Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) initiatives for improving skill of farmers for producing good quality and required quantity of raw material, development of infrastructure for quick transport of raw material and conservation of environment for sustainable

After India gained its independence, despite of surplus welfare policies and schemes that targeted at the upliftment of rural areas, a polarized development was witnessed. The past record of development initiatives in terms of plans and policies had clearly indicated weak attempts to curb the rural-urban disparity. Not only were the policies short-sighted but their implementation were lacking on ground level as well. Even in the current scenario, there is a dominant variation in the degree of development across India, and simultaneous existence of developed urban sub-regions. Concentration of essential physical and social infrastructure remains in the urban areas and hence their development outweighs that of the rural areas. The inefficiency of rural areas to provide for basic infrastructure, economic opportunities and
modern amenities has forced the rural population in migrating to the urban areas. This imbalance has led to weaker agricultural productions and has increased infrastructure pressure on urban areas. Urban areas are continuing to attract investments and resources, primarily in terms of housing.
The government's inability to meet the rural infrastructure deficit is the primary reason for out migration and creation of informal and unauthorized settlements. Owing to low levels of education, medical and other essential facilities, the rural areas are increasingly becoming dependent on their urban counterparts. Not only is there a need for efficient rural amenities, there is also a need for additional income generating provisions to make the rural areas self-dependent. In this context, the Government of India under the National Rurban Mission aspires to stimulate local economic development and enhance basic services in rural areas to create well planned Rurban clusters.

This book was edited by Prof. Prabhubhai K. Patel (Emeritus Professor of Architecture from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (Oldest Technical Institution of Asia). It was written to suggest ways that will improve the welfare and livelihood of the people in the rural areas in India. This book is written to assist students studying in Planning and Architecture on how to carry out a village survey, explaining methods and examples of survey. It examines the current environmental issues like flooding and re – cycle of waste materials, the availability of open spaces and pollution related cases. The survey in this book will form a framework for planning and the rehabilitation of villages within the Indian circle for the Government of India to approach the problems of the rural dwellers. This book is an attempt to identify the challenges encountered in the provision of rural housing and appraise the efforts of the Government of India to address them.

This book has laid emphasis on the importance of beneficial exploration of resources of human benefits, enhancement of resources management for long term productivity and thereby enhancing the quality of life of both residents and visitors. This book has revealed the current situation of formal and informal activities including landuse and conflicts, general land tenure of the village, source of housing finance, quality of housing, major transportation modes used and their problems as perceived by the rural dwellers.

The rural housing shortage is informally estimated at about 43 million units. Yet barely 10 percent of this shortage is the demand for new units.2 Total Housing shortage estimated in the year 2001 was about 14.67 million units in India as a whole and it was increased to 14.83 million units in the year 2011 and the same was estimated/projected to 14.99 million in the year 2021.3 The Draft Homestead Bill 2013 aims at providing a homestead of not less than 10 cents (0.1 acres or 4,356 sq. ft) to every landless and homeless poor family in rural areas. According to the Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India, extreme poverty in rural areas is rooted in landlessness. The paper seeks to critically examine Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) 4 which is the biggest and most comprehensive rural housing programme ever taken up in the country as an important tool which has extended hands for providing financial assistance to rural BPL households for construction/ up-gradation of dwelling units, supports livelihoods and promote social integration and important role which can be played by homestead5 lands in it. The paper would also enlighten the role of major rural development schemes like MGNREGA, SGSY/NRLM, and NBA, etc. which can be converged with IAY to increase its effectiveness through FGDs and case study. Keywords: Housing Schemes, Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY), Homestead Land, Convergence, Rural Development schemes https://www.lbsnaa.gov.in/lbsnaa_sub/cms/external-publication.php?crs

In a democratic country like India, it is not sufficient to have an elected government at the Centre and at the State level. It is also necessary that even at the local level, there should be an elected government to look after local issues. With this aim, Local Institutions have been introduced in the country in the form of Panchayati Raj Institutions. The primary role of the local Institutions is in the area of development and planning, whereas the implementation of programs for economic development and social justice are the focal point of all activities. After food and clothing, shelter is the next basic necessity of human existence. It is a fact that the vast majority of our country lives below the poverty line. The majority of them does not have a house or live in squalid kutcha houses. Therefore, the construction and maintenance of rural housing are entrusted to local Institutions for giving special emphasis. Generally, Gram Panchayats and other local institutions are playing the role of implementing agency for all Central and State sponsored schemes. The same role was envisaged under Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY). This paper attempts an analysis of the Role of Local Institutions in the implementation of a Rural Housing Scheme like Indira Awaas Yojana with special reference to Tripura.

In the aftermath of a disaster building processes are often taken over by external agencies whose approach towards reconstruction is governed by considerations such as safety, efficiency, cost-effectiveness and in some cases also by an explicit will to trigger social transformation. As a result reconstruction following disasters often entails dramatic changes in settlement location and morphologies, housing designs, building materials and construction processes. Based on an on-going research project focusing on communities’ patterns of adaptation to post-disaster relocated settlements in India the paper examines people’s strategies to re-gain control over the socio-spatial organization of their villages and to transform their agency-built houses in culturally meaningful places. The paper shows that people are not passive recipients of external agencies’ project and that they have the capacity to transform externally imposed notions of appropriate reconstruction to meet their culturally and livelihood specific needs. Based on a micro-level case study of a village in Gujarat it is argued that underestimating communities’ capacity to rebuild their own houses and villages and the failure to recognise the inherent functionality of local housing and building culture often entails not only missing the opportunity to enhance their resilience but in some cases even may even lead to increasing their vulnerability.