Tags:
Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, NOV 8: With cyclonic storms an annual feature along the Orissa coast, the Centre will use disaster-resistant housing technology in rebuilding the hundreds of thousands of houses that need to be constructed in the cyclone-ravaged state.
Newer building techniques which help dwellings withstand battering by cyclonic storms would be made easily available to the people of Orissa as they go about rebuilding their homes, Union Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation Minister Satyanarayan Jatia, who also looks after housing, told The Indian Express.
Lakhs of houses have been flattened by the severe cyclone that hit Orissa on October 30. Roofs flew off and walls collapsed after being hit by gale-force winds for over 36 hours.
Developed by the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC), the technology involves using pyramidal roofs so that the thrust area is reduced, with tiles to give the roof the required shape.
Additionally, the roof, walls and the foundation would have appropriate spacing to allow for flexibility when the building is buffeted by strong winds in a typhoon or cyclonic conditions, Jatia said.
Such techniques are commonly used in quake-prone areas in Japan and along the Californian coastline in the United States.
In India, the NBCC has been working on such disaster-resistant building techniques for a long time, revving up their efforts especially after the experiences of the Latur and Uttarkashi earthquakes.
However, these efforts have largely remained confined to small experimental projects, nothing on the scale of housing that lies ahead in Orissa.
In Jatia’s view housing and employment have to be inter-linked. "The current housing needs after the cyclone would generate four crore man-days of work in Orissa alone", he said, as people are pressed into large-scale house-building operations.
But funding for such a mammoth task would remain a problem. Jatia talks of low interest loans and flexible repayment schedules, though he agrees that for the pauperised people of Orissa, even the softest of loans may be an impossible burden.
"Which is why we have to involve the people in the construction work itself. Develop their skills as masons, carpenters, welders, so that they can find employment", Jatia said.
Since government’s share of the funding of housing would be limited, Jatia says the effort would be to make the technology and the materials readily available. "We will provide the technical assistance and the materials", he said, adding that resources would have to come from the emergency relief funds that the Centre has promised for the state.
One way out of the funds crunch that the government is contemplating, says Jatia, is to organise "shramdan", so that people can work jointly on rebuilding the homes destroyed in the cyclone.
