Housing, Rural Poor and their Living Conditions

The cultural history of man viewed house as a place of safety and an important determinant of personal and family satisfaction. Modern housing includes for more than the living space and shelter. Its nature and value are determined by the facilities like neighbourhood, access to education, health amenities, security and availability of community facilities, employment and so forth. Only very few societies have been successful in providing adequate housing. A number of developing countries have come to recognise the magnitude of the problems and are adopting different strategies for housing and building policy. The main theme of the book which is based on a research project completed in 1981 at the University of Mysore deals with the shortage of housing among the lower income groups and the poor besides those without a house in rural areas. In rural India housing poses a different problem. There is acute shortage of housing in village. The present shortage is put at twenty million units with an annual backlog of two million units due to population growth. An attempt is made by the authors to analyse the efforts of one of the governmental measures to the benefit of rural houseless population in Karnataka, one of the states of the Indian union. Much of the conclusions are based on the implementation of the Peoples’ (Janata) housing scheme during 1970s. The findings are revealing. The socio-political situation in rural areas of the state militates against the welfare schemes undertaken to the good of the poor and the needy. Nearly seventeen per cent of the village residents are without a place of their own to live. Plan allocation towards rural housing are meager. Land reforms and land ceiling laws are simply not helpful in tackling the problems effectively. Interestingly the state government has taken initiative through various schemes to house the poor and houseless with priorities and yearly targets. The strategy is working fairly well. The authors view that with pragmatic planning it would go a long way in meeting the challenge of housing need in village India.