The earlier days construction activities of Gram Vikas were restricted mainly to construction of bio gas plants. However as the interventions of Gram Vikas diversified, they found themselves in the need of an organized construction team which could take up construction of houses, community centers, schools and water tanks. Over the years they have been able to train and organise a team of engineers, construction supervisors and masons into an established Building Support Team. They have also initiated intensive training programmes for ‘barefoot' engineers and masons.
Housing and Infrastructure development
Gram Vikas had observed through their interaction with village elders that every 30-40 years the tribal settlements caught fire and were completely gutted, where in the people had to rebuild from scratch. Also repeated natural hazards such as cyclonic winds, raged havoc on the temporary constructions.
Hence, the solution that Gram Vikas envisaged was to provide the people with disaster proof house and equip them with water supply and sanitation to simultaneously improve their quality of life.
Since then Gram Vikas has been focusing on mobilizing communities to pool resources to create basic and social infrastructure such as disaster-proof habitats, community infrastructure including community halls, schools, grain banks, sanitation and water supply systems, roads and drainage, and alternative sources of energy including biomass based energy production. People contribute their own labour and locally available materials, or take loans arranged by Gram Vikas, as in the case of housing. The housing finance activity has evolved over the past from a full grant approach to a full loan approach. Gram Vikas also supports the communities by providing certain Social Costs. These costs are determined in the specific context of each habitation.
Gram Vikas provides financial and technical support for building permanent, disaster-proof houses. These houses on plains are made of brick and cement, with filler slab concrete roof. In inaccessible areas where cement cannot be transported, GCI sheets or tiles are used for the roof. In hilly areas houses are built with locally available stone. As a rule Gram Vikas supports construction of houses with at least 45 square meters of plinth area. Each house has two rooms, a kitchen space and a veranda.
The houses are built such that toilets and bathing rooms can be built alongside each house. The average cost of each house is Rs.45,000. The quantum of loan depends on the type of house being constructed, and ranges from Rs.10,000 to Rs.40, 000. Gram Vikas also provides technical guidance, mason support, training and bulk purchase of building materials
Barefoot Engineer's and Mason's Training programme
Considering the difficulties that Gram Vikas generally finds in getting qualified engineers and skilled labour to come and work with them, it decided to train their own people from the organisation and the villages in the art of construction, which is specifically need to them. This serves a larger purpose of generating employment for the villagers.
Their policy is to pick local people who have received some basic education and teach them elementary construction techniques. An elaborate training programme of both theory and practical training has been formulated. Simple yet effective training manuals have been compiled. The training involves the teaching of cost-effective building techniques and has duration of 6 months. 30 bare foot engineers have been trained till date. 150 to 200 masons are trained per year. In 2001a woman masons training programme was initiated. The trained women are now working on many of Gram Vikas' sites and get paid equal wages as the men masons
The district administration of Ganjam assigned Gram Vikas the job of constructing 19 high school buildings in different parts of the district under the Prime Minister's Relief Fund High School Project. These have been completed recently, mainly by the engineers and masons that Gram Vikas has trained.
VSBK
Scarcity of easily available building materials for construction of permanent houses, led Gram Vikas to set up its own Brick Manufacturing Unit. The brick kiln is of a traditional Chinese design and is called the Vertical Shaft Brick Kiln, VSBK. Gram Vikas has the second VSBK in India after Development Alternatives, DA. In 2001, it built another VSBK near to the Head Office at Mohuda with SADC support. These VSBKs enables year-round production of bricks in large quantities at prices lower than the market prices, thus enabling Gram Vikas to reduce construction costs.
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