Community Participation in the Self-Help Housing Project : an Analysis of a Housing Project for Tribal Communities in India

Chandrakant P¹*

1. SNDT Women’s University, Centre for Distance Education, Mumbai, India

Shelter is considered to be the basic needs of a human being. Though every human attempts to have some shelter, it varies in quality and quantity mainly due to our economy. Housing is one of the major concerns in India specially for the marginalized communities like tribals as these indigenous communities are getting alienated from the forests, an original site for their inhabitation.

Though there are government efforts to address the issue, it is observed that most of the government housing programmes for rural areas fail due to the lack of people’s participation. In order to give alternative to the government housing project ‘Indira Awas Yojana, a housing project was designed and implemented by a group of professional which is known as ‘Self-help Housing Project for the primitive tribal community called Katkaris.

The present study will critically analyse the Self-help Housing Project implemented by the author in the year 1994–95. The project is the outcome of the efforts by a multi-disciplinary team where people’s participation was the key factor. The study analyses the process of the project formulation, implementation and evaluates its present condition and the benefits achieved due to the housing project, such as reduction in migration in search of employment to other areas. It finally aims at evaluating the impact of housing project on two tribal colonies after 10 years and the degree of people’s participation in sustaining the project without the external leadership.

Photographs of different stages of people’s participation in the project will be an integral part of presentation along with the analysis.

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