A study revealed that a large number of rural homes are either kuchha or semi-pucca, which requires frequent maintenance - particularly in adverse weather conditions such as heavy monsoons. For the rural poor the desire to own a durable pucca home, with the option of being able to extend and add extra rooms when necessary gets the highest priority. In order to respond to such needs, MHT collaborated with the Government of Gujarat and constructed over 1200 houses in the districts of Patan, Surendranagar, Kutch, Anand, Vadodara and Kheda.
In January 2001, a major earthquake hit Gujarat, which killed more than 20,000 people, injured 167,000 people and destroyed nearly 400,000 homes. SEWA responded to the crisis by actively participating in the reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts in the affected areas of the state. Under the aegis of SEWA, MHT launched Naya Ghar Rural Housing Programme and collaborated with the local communities to construct disaster resistant houses in the severely affected districts of Kutch, Patan and Surendrenagar.The programme also attempted to teach the community to adopt safe and scientific building practices, mobilize the community workers for reconstruction of earthquake affected houses, and to generate alternative livelihood through reconstruction activity.
To achieve this goal a list of semi-skilled men and women masons was prepared and then they were trained in the method of earthquake resistance construction. Gram Samitis were formulated in each village to ensure that the process was participatory. Also, Sandesh Yatras (Message Rallies) were conducted in 147 villages to generate awareness about earthquake resistant construction principles. Under this programme, MHT constructed 5017 permanent shelters, 511 semi permanent shelters, and 3122 toilets.
Reconstruction of Houses, Post Earthquake in Gujarat
|
District
|
Permanent Shelter
|
Semi Permanent Shelter
|
Toilets
|
Roof Rain Water harvesting tanks
|
|
Surendranagar
|
1837
|
363
|
736
|
-
|
|
Patan
|
2982
|
148
|
2386
|
1139
|
|
Kutch
|
198
|
NIL
|
NIL
|
-
|
|
Total
|
5017
|
511
|
3122
|
1139
|
The long term achievements of the programme are:
- Trained 300 skilled and 400 semi skilled masons in disaster resistance construction. Some of these masons are working in Sardar Awaas Yojana (SAY) (a housing scheme), implemented jointly by Government of Gujarat and MHT, in the districts not affected by earthquake.
- Expanded the institutional capacity of MHT to construct houses in collaboration with local communities on a large scale.
Currently, MHT has partnered with the state government to construct toilets with the collaboration of community in six villages of Vadodara and Anand districts. The concerned households are also linked with financial institutions to access microfinance for the purpose. MHT has also linked the participant communities with other infrastructure schemes of the government to provide water connection and electricity. |