The Indian village as we understand it today, will be unrecognisable if the government acts on the recommendations of a report on rural housing by the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER).
The report says every village needs a master plan for housing development, planned group housing, may be even multi-storeyed apartments and there should be room for public-private partnership (PPP) in rural housing. It predicts about 42 million new rural houses by 2025 based on the finding that incomes were increasing in villages and people were generally unhappy with their living conditions.
Shashanka Bhide, one of the authors of the report, said that planned development was key to future rural housing in India. He said group housing models suggested by the study did not rule out multi-storeyed structures.
The report on rural housing, commissioned by global cement giant Holcim, says that construction of group housing complexes in densely-populated villages through PPPs should be encouraged. It says that the government should consider not only subsidised housing but also other financial products to enable renewal and repair of houses. It also suggests that self-help groups should be encouraged to save money towards group housing projects. It recommends use of pre-fabricated material, skills upgrade of construction workers for large-scale construction activities in villages, and also setting up a rural housing development corporation to encourage private participation in rural housing.
The report hints at scarcity of land for housing in villages without specifically stating it. It says that while 45 per cent householders had built houses on non-agricultural land, the same number had built houses on farmland.
The report further says that group housing solutions should be encouraged even in government schemes, and the subsidy given under Indira Awas Yojana would be revised from 35,000 from time to time as it is inadequate.
It also calls for housing finance in rural areas.
The survey, which covered 150 villages across the country, says that 42 million rural houses are likely to come up by 2025, the same growth which was there from 1991 to 2008. The 11th Plan targets construction of 15 million houses in the Plan period (2007-12).
The report says that most households reported increases in household income in the past decade with land-owning households reporting about 25 per cent increase in their income. The increase has been attributed to both improved crop yields and better wages.
The report has also observed “widespread optimism” among rural households with regard to their income in the next 10 years. This optimism is stronger among the richest 40 per cent households, it says.
