5) Description of housing product/service offering: All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI) has developed different programs for affordable housing after a disaster. Different responses reflect contextual needs for shelters after various disasters as listed below. For 2001 earthquake affected poor residents of illegal slums of Bhuj, Gujarat: Support for semi-permanent shelters and community centres with raw materials, technical guidance and labour costs. For 2002 communal riots affected poor people of Ahmedabad, Gujarat: Support for shelter repair with raw materials. For 2004 tsunami affected fishermen of 15 villages, Tamil Nadu & Pondicherry: Support for temporary shelters, community centres and infrastructure (water, sanitation, storm water drainage, internal roads) with raw materials, technical guidance and labour costs. For shelter repair and retrofitting with raw material, technical guidance and labour costs. For 2005 flood affected slum dwellers of Kheda, Gujarat: Support for temporary shelters with raw materials. For shelter repair with raw material and labour cost. For semi- permanent shelters and community infrastructure (water and sanitation) with raw materials, technical support and labour costs. For 2005 earthquake affected poor families in different villages of 2 districts of Jammu & Kashmir: Support for semi-permanent shelters with raw materials, technical support and labour costs. AIDMI addresses different aspects of housing shortage such as access to housing as an essential right, timely shelter support for faster economic recovery, safer construction technologies for mitigation, participatory process to empower the marginalized and women, joint ownership for gender balance and link with risk transfer instrument for sustainability against future disasters. AIDMI’s involvement of working with affected communities begins with organising the affected communities to form local committees and volunteers. Technical experts prepare action plans jointly with committees and volunteers.

6) Description of innovation: Most of the existing programs for disaster reconstruction treat disaster victims as mere recipients of aid. AIDMI supports communities recovering from disaster with a focus on community action and bottom up individual initiative. Survivors are active participants of the process. At each stage of work - damage documentation, need identification, site selection, designing, estimation, supplier selection, rate negotiation, material depot management, material distribution, mason selection, monitoring and payments; local committees and volunteers take a lead. ‘One-to-one’ approach reflects creative and materialistic identities of house owners. In creative terms, this includes designing of houses, preparing layouts and decoration with traditional crafts. In material terms, this means, utilising salvaged materials such as doors, windows, stones, etc. and integrating their skills as masons, carpenters, painters or through physical work. Budget for construction are optimum low, as it is in the form of grant rather than loan. Average cost for a semi- permanent house is around INR 20,000 (US $ 465). To ensure safer construction, AIDMI consults architects, structural engineers, fire safety consultants, etc. AIDMI also organises training for masons and beneficiaries. In many poor families AIDMI works with, women do not have a ‘default’ say in sale, purchase or mortgaging of real estate property. To address the issue of gender inequality, AIDMI issues joint ownership certificates on government notified stamp papers with authorization from judicial magistrates so that the husband and wife (or man and woman) of a family jointly own the new shelter. AIDMI has esspecially developed an insurance scheme to cover its poor shelter beneficiaries against future risks. The insurance premium per annum is lower than INR 200 (US $ 5). The policy, which has to be renewed by house owners themselves each year, also covers household items and inhabitants in addition to the house.

7) Benefits to clients: The nature of AIDMI’s support is that of a grant rather than of a loan. Therefore, it values that its support reaches families who require it the most. However, after any disaster, the feeling of shock and helplessness hinders the process of identification of the neediest victims because, all the affected people want to receive support offered as a grant no matter whether they require it or not. AIDMI conducts first hand assessments immediately after a disaster. These assessments have their focus on landless labourers and artisans in rural areas and slum dwellers and small businesses in urban areas. AIDMI organises community meetings and establishes gender balanced local area committees consisting of community leaders and volunteers. Existing elected village councils are also consulted in cases of working in rural areas. The local committee members selected by the community are usually the most sensible and respected members of the community. They select the poorest among the victims and crosscheck with the community members to make sure that none of the poorest victims are left out. Thus, a social pressure is created by a transparent and participatory decision-making process, which ensures that all those who deserve the support receive it. It is observed by AIDMI that on almost all the occasions, there have never been any serious quarrels amongst the beneficiaries and the non- beneficiaries. AIDMI is also involved in various development and disaster mitigation activities in different states of India. Based on its work during the last 15 years, it has a large database of poor people, in the format of Geographical Information System. It also has a large network of community-based organizations, local committees, volunteers and trained respondents. Such database and networks are readily utilised for identification of the most needy families after a disaster.

8) Key operational partnerships: On one hand, different national and international donor agencies are AIDMI’s partners for providing shelter support in the form of grants to poor disaster victims. Apart from providing finances, the donor agencies also offer different lateral learning experiences along with other national and international organisations. On the other hand, to ensure safer construction AIDMI has a network with different technical consultants such as structural engineers, fire safety consultants, architects, etc. These technical consultants offer various technical solutions and alternatives for safer construction at a low cost. They also provide support in preparing training materials, organise trainings, prepare awareness materials and document technical learning through the process. At the local level, AIDMI has strong partnerships with local volunteers, local area committees, and elected rural and urban councils. The local partnerships ensure that different activities such as shelter support, training, awareness camps etc. reach the target populations without much expense.

9) Financial model: Essentially AIDMI’s shelter support is in the form of a grant. Thus, the beneficiaries need not spend anything on their own to acquire the support. However, most of them participate in the process and in addition to AIDMI’s support, contribute around 15 to 20 per cent of their own resources. AIDMI has one product, namely that of an insurance policy, which has been specially designed for the poor people. This insurance scheme covers shelters and household items, in addition to their lives, against a number of disasters. Beneficiaries have to pay annual premium, which is lower than INR 200 (US $ 5) and need to renew it each year.

          • Costs as percentage of income: 20

          • Financing: AIDMI’s shelter initiative is financed by different donor agencies. Beneficiaries contribute an average of 15 to 20 per cent in addition. Main aspect of bringing financial sustainability is a specially developed insurance scheme. It ensures that all future damages are borne by the insurance companies instead of the beneficiaries or donor agencies. During last year, there have been two major cases of fires. In one house, the entire roof collapsed beyond repair. In another electrical wiring, doors, windows and the wall paint had to be replaced. Due to insurance, both beneficiaries received compensation and could repair their houses on their own.

10) Effectiveness

          • Project outcomes: A total of around 8400 families have been supported by AIDMI so far: 307 in Bhuj, Gujarat (2001 earthquake) for semi-permanent shelters, 6000 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat (2002 communal riots) for shelter repairs, Around 1400 in Tamil Nadu & Pondicherry (2004 tsunami) for temporary shelters, 280 in Tamil Nadu (2004 tsunami) being supported currently for shelter repair & retrofitting, Around 200 in Kheda, Gujarat (2005 floods) for temporary shelters, around 100 in Ahmedabad, Nadiad, Kheda and Vadodara in Gujarat (2005 floods) for shelter repair and 15 in Kheda for semi-permanent shelters (2005 floods), 171 in rural Jammu & Kashmir (2005 earthquake) for semi- permanent shelters.

          • Number of clients in past year: Total families supported during last one year are around 500. 11 in Bhuj as part of 2001 earthquake support, 315 in Kheda as part of 2005 flood support and 171 in Kashmir as part of 2005 earthquake support.

          • Percentage of clients that are poor or marginalized: 70

          • Potential demand: There is an urgent need of shelter support for 1,900 poor families from different urban slums of Gujarat, where AIDMI is involved. They are survivors of 2001 earthquake and floods of 2004/05/06. They were not eligible for governmental shelter relief or compensation, as they did not own the land upon which their houses were constructed. Many have been living on the same sites for 40-50 years. Local municipalities collect house tax from most of them and even provide water connection, streetlights, electricity connection and telephone facilities. These 1,900 families consist of 1,000 from Bhuj, 100 from Kheda, 300 from Nadiad, 200 from Vadodara and 300 from Surat. At an average estimate of INR 35,000 (US $ 813), a total sum of INR 66,500,000 (US $ 1,546,511) is required. Low-cost construction integrated with safer technologies will be backed up by special insurance for risk transfer.

11) Scaling up strategy

          • Stage of the initiative: Scaling Up stage.

          • Expansion plan: AIDMI intends to recruit around 8 members in technical staff and 10 field team members within 1 year. Technologies for safer construction using local materials will be developed after comprehensive research and experimentation within next 2 years. Five materials depots will be established in Kheda, Nadiad, Surat, Vadodara and Bhuj to keep construction materials, procured in bulk. Regular trainings for masons, volunteers and beneficiaries will be conducted to explain the details of low cost safer construction technologies. At the end of 2 years, the material depots will also be receiving old and new construction materials through donations from different individuals, institutions and construction firms. The material depots will specially serve the Below Poverty Line population in a manner of Public Distribution System for food grains existing in India.

12) Origin of the initiative: One year after the 2001 Kutch earthquake, a survey conducted by AIDMI revealed that thousands of people in the slums of Bhuj – the district capital of Kutch – were still living in vulnerable housing conditions and were unable to recover their livelihoods. Slums of Bhuj had been mostly left out of the post-earthquake shelter recovery processes, due to complexity arising out of illegal land tenure. In response, AIDMI initiated the Bhuj Recovery Program in January 2002 with three objectives : (1) to improve and promote shelter security (2) to give poor victims a voice in the new town planning process of Bhuj and (3) to build and increase livelihood security. Shri Mihirbhai R. Bhatt – honorary director of AIDMI and Shri Hasmukhbhai Sadhu – coordinator of Bhuj Reconstruction Program were instrumental in initiating and developing the shelter support program with a ‘one-to-one’ approach.

Contact Information:
Mihir  Bhatt
Honorary Director
All India Disaster Mitigation Institute
(NGO)
India
Website: www.southasiadisasters.net