Social

Graduating untrained/ informally trained construction artisans into a formally trained cadre or bridging the gap between these hapless construction artisans and formally trained architects/ engineers is the main objective of this organisation. Through this project, this has been aimed at. The institution building process itself empowers the construction artisans through grouping them, building their capacities not only technically but managerially so that they, now formally styled as ASHGs, can network and negotiate in the market while also practising effective construction management.

Further to this, it has been found that the ASHG group savings have led to, in many cases, better education opportunities for their children or ability to tackle any health related issue within their families. Moreover these masons who work on buildings face the daily threat of accidents; there is an informal insurance system developed within these groups more due to the intense fellow feeling.

The communities at large have been immensely benefited through the project as they have now better access to information regarding ongoing Govt. sponsored rural housing schemes. The appropriate technologies promoted lead to making housing affordable, thereby inspiring them to first save and then invest their savings in housing to avail at least a one-roomed pucca (brick and concrete) house integrated with other rooms in mud and thatch to help seek refuge in times of calamities in these so frequently visited disaster-prone areas. The communities now avail the services of these ASHGs as a group from soil excavation to completion of their houses and need not run from pillar to post after the mason/ labourers/ electricians/ painters; all these services are now available combined in the ASHG in the form of a one-stop shop.

Since each house is funded by the house owner (either through individual savings/ loans or through the IAY programme wherein the funds are transferred directly by the Govt. to the house owner in instalments depending on the progress of work), the family is encouraged to design the house architecturally suiting to their needs and space available on site. However all necessary technical guidance for the house to be made affordable and safe is offered by the DTs.

In partnership with UNICEF various child-friendly, barrier-free toilets for Anganwadi centres and schools were designed and scaled/ onsite models prepared. The models have been specially designed to attract children to get used to the habit of using toilets; special features include small height swing doors, provisions for adequate light and ventilation, use of colourful translucent FRP sheet for roofing (to bring in more light), ramps, special fixtures for the differentially-abled children, small sized pans for defecation, etc.

The initiative of creating and empowering Nirmiti Samitis (village committees) to understand habitat issues and evolve as community contractors has in many cases enabled women’s’ voices to be first heard in village meetings and in decision makings. During a habitat planning process in the village Saintal of Jagatsinghpur district, the children urged to have the school building as per their design; they design is today a reality on ground. The habitat planning exercises generate great interest among villagers to improve their villages and immediate habitats.

Mainstreaming gender in construction sector has been also one of the focus areas of ODTF. Hence skill upgradation programmes for women construction labourers to graduate them slowly into masons and involving the women SHGs in income generation activities like production, thrift and trade of building materials have been taken up in many districts.

Environmental

The technologies being promoted are environment-friendly along with being cost-effective and disaster-resistant. This has been so since the consumption of burnt mud bricks for walling are almost saved by one-thirds. This is due to the rat-trap walling systems (kindly refer Annexure V). Similar is the case of filler slab roofing wherein substantial amount of steel and cement and chips are saved. Brick arches, which have been a vernacular style of architecture here, having been used profusely in temples, have been brought back to eliminate reinforced cement concrete lintels. However, the elements for structural stability and disaster-resistance are always carefully incorporated. This, in example, definitely demands use of little extra steel at specific points for anchorage and bracing within the structure.

As a result of these techniques, the house construction process not only demands consumption of less building materials but also the houses offer pleasant living conditions inside. For example, the rat-trap bonded cavity walls and filler slab roofing with air gaps in between provide the necessary insulation desirable for these hot and humid tropical climates. Further as explained earlier, the buildings are designed to combat the adverse effects of nature like the fury of cyclones, floods and earthquakes.

During the construction of 50 Anganwadi centres in Rayagada district, local stones were used for foundation work and fly-ash bricks for walling. Besides being cost-effective and eliminating the use of cement plaster on the outside façade, this generated an overall awareness among the communities, local construction artisans, civil society organizations for use of these environment-friendly bricks for their own houses/ other construction works.

Presently the housing initiative has led ODTF to embark on the Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln project, which involves production of bricks in a highly environment-friendly process, through consuming less of coal thereby producing low emissions of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, having provisions for adequate chimney height and use of industrial wastes. This project due to its cleaner productions has brought in benefits to the entrepreneurs through the World Bank Community Developed Carbon Fund.

Economic

Improving housing affordability and accessibility

Herein the project involves only technical facilitation to the families, who build their homes using their own funds. The human resource support to these BPL families were provided free of costs to the house owners since this was supported by the SDC-UNDP project. However this support from the mother project tapered off over the years. The purpose was to create self-supporting institutions running in entrepreneurship mode from the grassroots in the form of ASHGs to the professional DTs in ODTF.

Needless to reiterate here again, the technologies promoted made use of local building materials and were designed to be cost-optimised but without compromising the structural strengths. Housing was thus made affordable yet safe. The benefits from the technologies can be realized through the cost comparisions of a small house using conventional vis-à-vis appropriate technologies furnished in Annexure – III. Overall about 20-25% cost reduction in houses constructed using appropriate technologies have been observed.

Access to information regarding housing guidelines, schemes, technologies, details of trained masons in the locality through the already functioning Information Technology (IT) kiosks in villages, mobile camps, IEC materials etc. accelerated the house building drive in the minds of these rural people in remote areas.

Addressing the issue of income generation

The livelihoods of ASHGs have all along shown increments consistently. This has been probably possible since ASHGs were groomed not only to offer better quality services but also in production of goods, especially in the lean periods. In most cases, these ASHGs have been facilitated to avail loans from local and nationalised banks to start micro-enterprise for production of better quality building materials using local resources in the form of brick kilns, concrete block and tile production, sanitary marts, renting of steel shuttering sets, etc. There have been improvements in livelihoods for the ASHG members due to improvement in their daily wages, enhancement in more days of work in a month and parallel trade of goods and promotion of thrift and credit activities. The increment in livelihoods is noted and regularly maintained by the ASHGs. These were compiled and averaged in INR per month at each district level and finally at the state level - the graph alongside reveals the trends in sample districts and that of the average in the province.