Housing and Physical Planning

c) The councillor funded projects

All municipal governments fund small projects identified by their ward councilors in their areas. Most of the projects consist of open drains, water distribution network and street paving. In the absence of an area master plan, supervision and coordination with other area level community and government initiatives, these projects quickly fall into disuse or fail to link up with intermediate infrastructure, if and where it is available. The councilor supported projects constitute a major waste of public money, which, given proper planning and technical support could help the development of better neighbourhood conditions in low income settlements.

d) Community response

Communities in katchi abadis and slums are often forced to come together to tackle major environmental problems that they face in these settlements. Most of these problems are related ‘to sanitation, water supply, health and solid waste disposal. These initiatives are seldom successful because of 4 barriers. The psychological barrier, due to which most members of the community feel that the government should provide these services to them free of charge and do not participate in these efforts. The social barrier, which is a failure to organise in an effective way in the absence of a larger vision. The economic barrier, which is because of the high cost of conventional development which people cannot afford. And the technical barrier, or the absence of technical and managerial skills and the lowering of costs through action research to overcome the economic barrier.

5. Rural Sector Issues

5.1 Deterioration in rural housing conditions

Whereas no data is available regarding performance of the housing industry in the rural sector, the results of the 1972-73 survey and of the 1980 housing census and subsequent sample surveys clearly bring out deterioration in the housing conditions. These are detailed below.

1. The supply of housing in the rural sector increased by 31 percent during the 1970-73 period and this ratio declined to 12 percent during 1973-80 period. The trend has continued.
2. Housing stock registered during 1973-80 indicates that 118,200 units were constructed annually in the rural areas compared with the demand for 202,600. Thus, a deficit of 84,400 housing units has been accumulating during this period on an annual basis.
3. There has been a gradual increase in over-crowding in rural housing since 1960. The persons per housing unit ratio increased from 4.9 in 1960 to 6.6 in 1980. Likewise, the persons per room ratio increased from 3.3 to 4.0 during this period. The average number of rooms per housing unit improved from 1.8 to 2.0 during 1967-73 but has declined again to 1.8 in 1980 and declined further since then.

5.2 Age of existing structures

Analysis of the rural housing situation further brings out that about 57 percent of the existing houses were constructed more than 11 years ago. Of this, 21 percent had an age of 34 years of more and about 75 percent are katcha houses. Considering the type of construction materials used in the rural areas, it emerges that a sizable proportion is in need of immediate replacement or repairs. The credit facilities for house construction or repair in the rural sector are either limited or not available at all. This is because of a larger demand in the urban sector which draws money and skills away from the rural areas and also because a large number of rural families do not have formal ownership papers for the houses in which they live. Without such documents access to formal credit is not possible.

5.3 Reasons for existing conditions in rural areas

As outlined above, there is an annual backlog of 85,000 housing units in the rural sector. In addition, the quality of rural housing has declined rapidly over the years and densities in existing settlements have increased alarmingly.

The reasons for this state of affairs in the rural housing sector are:

1. Lack of information: There is a complete lack of research and information on the nature or extent of change related to the housing •sector in the rural areas. Issues like land use changes; changes in densities; degradation of the housing stock; accumulated deficit estimates in housing; performance of the housing industry in the rural areas; development of new needs due to change in production and marketing methods; have all to be researched into. Without an understanding of these issues it is impossible to formulate a policy for rural housing. A data-base, however, does exist in the form of the 1980 housing census. This base needs to be built upon and analysed.
2. Urban rural dichotomy: Three points must be kept in view in the context of rural conditions. First, policies in respect of rural and urban areas cannot be framed in isolation. It is now clearly understood and recognised that a sizable proportion ‘of urban problems have their roots in the rural areas. Secondly, the federal and provincial governments are too far removed to have any visible impact in the rural areas, necessitating active association of the local bodies in the process of planning and setting of priorities. This will require delegation of more development responsibilities to the local bodies. The role of the federal and provincial governments has, therefore, to be restricted to areas of policy, research, technical assistance, planning and institutional improvements. Thirdly, houses in the rural areas have traditionally been built on self-help basis. The opportunities for promoting aided and guided self-help housing, cooperative effort and community participation is far greater in the rural areas than in the urban areas. This must be fully capitalised.

5.5 Existing government policies for the rural housing sector

a) Plot development

The 7 marla scheme: The 7 marla schemes developed by the government have consisted of the division of community and state land and the allotment of such subdivisions, free of charge, to the poor. Evaluations of such schemes have shown that most of them are lying vacant. These evaluations have further shown that the reasons for their non-occupancy are their physical inaccessibility in some cases, and their being held for speculative purposes in others. In the later case they have already been acquired from the allotees by the richer sections of the population. In addition, the 7 marla scheme has already depleted community and state land in certain districts, and once this depletion is complete the programme will come to a halt.

b) Village improvement schemes

A number of schemes for village improvements with community participation in terms of finance and/or a labour component are operative in various areas of the country. These schemes consist of piped water projects, street paving and sanitation and school building programmes. They are promoted and managed by the local government and rural development departments (LG and RDD) and the district councils. Some form part of the district development plans, while others are funded by the annual development plans. A few are also supported by international agencies.

Evaluations of these programmes have shown that these schemes get implemented only where the district councils are financially and politically strong, which not more than a handful are. Even where they do get implemented, the end result is technically defective and it has been noted that usually only the influential benefit from them. Operation and maintenance of these schemes inevitably pose problems, as revenues required for 0&M are nor realised. Most of them become inoperative after a few years or function erratically.

The reasons for the problems mentioned above are:

• The engineering wing of the LG and ROD and the district councils are organisationally and technically weak.
• No motivational or organisational work is undertaken in the community before work is begun. Thus, the community’s involvement is missing in the maintenance and operation of schemes as well.
• There are no proper monitoring and evaluation facilities with the LG and ROD or the district councils. The rural development academies can fill this gap but their involvement with these programmes is negligible. They have become centres of esoteric research.
• It has been noted that in certain NGO projects in the rural areas, such as the AKRSP, the technical results are much better and the villagers effectively operate and maintain the infrastructure that they create. This is because of the motivational, extension and monitoring work done by the NGOs.