Cost effective technology options would enable shelter for poor population

SEVAI Cost effective building material  production center

Shelter construction is a response to a quite complex set of economic, social, and basic need. Housing quality concerns simply the quality of the internal and external structure of a dwelling and aspects of the internal environment. Housing quality is also referred to as housing condition or housing habitability. There is a great scope for using local low-cost materials in housing. The strong body of evidence showing the association between housing quality and health has promoted a growing interest in housing quality. The inflation of construction costs in India is increasing rapidly. Poor people find it difficult to have shelters with conventional building materials. So there is need for going for alternative building material those are cost effective at the same time, not compromising the quality of the shelters. The costs of basic building materials such as steel, cement, bricks, timber and other inputs as well as cost of labour have gone up steeply.  Construction cost of this order is beyond the affordability of the economically weak groups. There is a need to adopt cost-effective construction methods either by upgradation of traditional technologies using local resources or applying modern construction materials and techniques with efficient inputs leading to economic solutions. There are technology options available for various elements of building construction, leading to cost-effectiveness and at the same time not affecting the performance characteristics expected from a decent house. It is desirable to have increased understanding of the various materials and technology options, its structural and functional characteristics and efficiencies and more

Cost effective houses constructed by SEVAI in Trichy Uraiyur slums

importantly the methodologies for implementation. Series of follow-up measures to enable application of the same would need to be taken. These would cover work related to regulatory measures, organizational development needs and also technology transfer mechanisms evolved. This would play a major role in ensuring the adoption of appropriate and cost-effective technologies in housing and building construction scene, which is one of the vital inputs to make affordable and acceptable housing a reality for the vast majority of low-income people in the country. The use of Ferro cement water tank has become very popular in the last one decade in Tamil Nadu.The trainings are being imparted to the large number of masons, bar-benders and concrete work force. Similarly the use of precast well rings for water well has also caught up because of their popularity and the fact that they are manufactured by private sector outlets. This has become very important because of the need for pumping ground water in the areas where surface water is scarce. The sanitation schemes using twin pits is also giving rise to the manufacture of the rings for sanitation. Low cost housing refers to those housing units which are affordable by that section of society whose income is below than median household income. This depends on three key parameters—income level, size of dwelling unit and affordability. In a building the walls, floors and roofs are the most important sections, which can be analyzed distinctively based on the needs, thus, improving the speed of construction and reducing the construction cost. The technology option aims to cover the

Ferro-Cement toilets  by SEVAI

use of local materials in the different components of building to make them as low cost available solutions for low income groups. It has now become a necessity to adopt cost effective, innovative and environment-friendly housing technologies for the construction of houses and buildings and availing them at low cost comparatively. In order to come up with viable solutions this paper compares the construction cost for the traditional and low cost housing technologies and it was observed that with the use of technology and reuse of waste material as building material the cost of construction can be minimized to an extent. It was observed that with if the filler slab can be used as an alternative to conventional slab the cost of construction can reduce around 25%. With the time more studies are going to identify the reuse of waste material like fly ash, rice husk, etc as building material. After realizing the true potential of these waste materials as building material in construction industry the cost can be minimized to a greater extent.-Kris