16.
Online Project Nomination Form
Email Address
ruzaman@devalt.org
FromCivSoc
on
NameOfGroup
Dbasin - South Asia, Development Alternatives
NameOfFocalPoint Mr. Rizwan Uz Zaman
Title
Lok Awaas Yatra
StreetAddress
: B-32, TARA Crescent, Qutub Institutional Area, New Delhi
City
New Delhi
StateProvReg
Delhi
Country
India
PostalCode
110016
PhoneBusiness
26134103
PhoneMobile
9999109757
PhoneFax
26130817
1 - Description
Lok Awaas Yatra – A journey to promote sustainable habitat for rural
areas was led by the basin - South Asia Secretariat at Development
Alternatives (www.devalt.org), a leading action research organisation with
its headquarters at New Delhi.
The Lok Awaas Yatra (LAY) was initiated with an aim of learning from the
best practices in community based solutions for alternative and eco-habitat
rural development, and collating the good practices in habitat
development to understand the impact of climate change on the rural
habitat. More than 550 yatris participated with us in the Lok Awaas Yatra
including Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), block and district level officers,
civil society organisations, artisans, masons, carpenters, sarpanches
(Village Heads), women Self Help Group (SHG) members, architects,
students, district level officers, technical institutes and grass-root planners.
The overall objective of the Yatra is to generate awareness and
disseminate possible strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation
measures for Safe and Sustainable Habitat Developmentthrough dialogue,
networking and knowledge sharing by a Participatory Cross-Learning
Journey across Vulnerable Geo-Climatic Regions of Rural India.
The yatra was based on eight themes these include:
•
Low Carbon Construction Technologies
•
Habitat Infrastructure
•
Water and Sanitation
•
Habitat-based livelihoods
•
Social Housing
•
Alternate Habitat Finance
•
Renewable Energy Technologies
•
Disaster Risk Reduction
The Yatra facilitates the process of knowledge dissemination by:

Sharing models of low carbon sustainable habitat and
livelihood in the appropriate regional, economic,
cultural/institutional and technological context
 Learning through exposure of PRI representatives and
other stakeholders to ‘green practices’ in habitat
development and management
 Facilitate a dialogue amongst a network of PRI
representatives, Civil Society Organisations,
Government officials and development practitioners on
low carbon development practices
 Consolidate and disseminate existing field
knowledge through information packages, discussions
and documentations of identified case studies among
the Yatra participants
 Advocating action amongst participants and influencing
local district plans and state instruments for habitat
development to incorporate sustainable rural habitats
and livelihoods across these regions
 Develop a practice support tool for Panchayats,
including a set of modules on key thematic issues on
climate change and sustainable habitat with appropriate
learning materials, and identifying the factors and
facilitators responsible for adoption and up-scaling of
initiatives by using it as promotional documents.
The Lok Awaas Yatra (LAY) was a campaign initiated as a follow up of the
draft National
Rural
Habitat
Policy submitted
by basin-South
Asiasecretariat at Development Alternatives. Over 900 consultations were
made and the draft was prepared covering 21 states + 1 Union Territory.
The National Habitat Policy is a generic policy for rural and urban areas
but does not adequately address the specific and distinct concerns of
thenation’s rural areas. The draft National Rural Habitat Policy ensures
that the special character priorities and potential of life in rural India are
adequately and realistically addressed. The proposed policy seeks a solution
to bridge the gap between demand and supply of housingand
infrastructure with emphasis on ecologically sustainable technologies for
construction, water supply, sanitation and domestic energy, decentralised
local production and delivery of services, capacity building, community
participation and self help linkages between livelihoods and the habitat within
the framework of the Panchayati Raj.
The key recommendations of this draft National Rural Habitat Policy were:

Capacity Building of Panchayati Raj Functionaries in
Sustainable Habitat issues so that ‘Adequate Housing
for All’ is achieved in an environmentally and socially
sustainable manner.

Land should be provided to all so that they can
access government grants and subsidies for housing
and habitat.
 Developing a viable, profitable local supply
system for appropriate building materials and labour via
enterprise route will enable better habitat for rural people
and improve the local economy.
Five regional Yatras: North, West, East, South and Central Regionswere
conducted from September 2009 to December 2010. Over 30 agencies
across India partnered with this initiative in the entire process and 550 yatris’
capacity building was done through proper training along with exposure to
the best practices of eco-habitat.
The Yatra process was designed to share the learnings, experiences and
good practices of eco-habitat development and discuss the strategies for
scaling up and replicating eco-habitat good practices in various geo-climatic
zones of the country.
More than 30 agencies from the regional, national and international levels
partnered with this initiative. Few of the partners include: Ministry of Rural
Development (MoRD), Government of India; Department of Rural
Housing, Government of Bihar; Building Materials and Technology
Promotion Council (BMTPC); National Housing Bank (NHB); Climate
Change and Development Division - Embassy of Switzerland, India;
Building and Social Housing Foundation (UK); Gram Vikas; UNNATI;
Catholic Relief Services; Trust for Village Self Governance; The Laurie
Baker Centre; GOAL; Centre for Science in Villages and others. The
detailed list of partners is enclosed below
Roles and Responsibilities of the National as well as International
Partners include:
2 - MainPartners


Offering assistance in planning the entire initiative
Providing financial support for implementing the
initiatives on the ground
Roles and Responsibilities of the Regional Partners include:
 Designing the entire yatra by identifying the best practices
in the Vulnerable Geo-Climatic Regions of Rural India
 Identifying the relevant yatris/citizens who have been
benefited from the Yatra and giving them a platform to
share their experiences
 Support the initiative in organising the regional seminars
to discuss the learnings of each yatra

Helping in the development of networks to influence state
level policy


Creating awareness about the initiative in their individual
regions
Assist the regional stakeholders in replicating good
practices and enhancing ecological efficiencies
1. Partners of Lok Awaas Yatra
1. Department of Rural Housing, Ministry of Rural
Development, Government of India
2. Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council,
Government of India
3. National Housing Bank, Government of India
4. Department of Rural Development, Government of Bihar
5. Swiss Agency for Development and Corporation, India
6. Building and Social Housing Foundation, London
7. Gram Vikas, Odissa
8. Ashraya, Odissa
9. Catholic Relief Services, Odissa
10. Development Professional Forum, Odissa
11. UNNATI, Gujarat
12. Self Employed Women Association (SEWA), Gujarat
13. Aga Khan Planning and Building Services, Gujarat
14. Lupin Foundation, Rajasthan
15. Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology
16. Andhra Pradesh State Housing Commission,
Government of Andhra Pradesh
17. Habitat for Humanity, Tamil Nadu
18. Trust for Village Self Governance, Tamil Nadu
19. Maithri, Kerala
20. The Laurie Baker Centre, Kerala
21. Technology and Research Network (TARN), Uttrakhand
22. Centre for Sustainable Development (CSD), Himachal
Pradesh
23. Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conversation
Organisation (HESCO), Uttrakhand
24. GOAL, Sundarbans, West Bengal
25. Sahyog Nirmitee, Maharashtra
26. TAAL, Madhya Pradesh
27. Centre for Science in Villages, Wardha
28. Megh Pyne Abhiyan, Bihar
29. Knowledge Works, New Delhi
30. One World South Asia, New Delhi
3 - Achievements
More than 550 yatris participated in the Lok Awaas Yatras, including
Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs), block and district level officers, civil
society organisations artsians, masons, carpenters, sarpanches (Village
Heads), women Self Help Group (SHG) members, architects, students,
district level officers, technical institutes, women SHGs members and grassroot planners. More than 60 case studies of good practices of eco-habitat
development have been documented till date in the yatra process. Wellestablished networks were developed with state-level officers, civil society
organisations and habitat practioners in five vulnerable geo-climatic zones of
the country.
The key achievements of the Lok Awaas Yatra (LAY) are:






The Government of Madhya Pradesh has extended an
official invitation to design a policy document for the
Chief Minister Rural Housing Mission, provided the
initiative with the requisite consultancy as well as
implemented the capacity building of the local artisans
for alternate building technologies in the districts of
Madhya Pradesh. The policy will cater to the existing
shortages of housings in the state.
basin - South Asia has become a part of the working
group committee for the Twelfth Five Year Plan to
review and design the Indira Awaas Yojna (IAY)
and Provision of Urban Amenities in the rural area
(PURA) mission document under the Ministry of Rural
Development (MoRD), Government of India.
Parliamentary Consultative Committee Members for
Rural Development Ministry suggested a review of the
Below Poverty Line (BPL) list for the Indira Awaas Yojna
(IAY).
Collaborations are on with the Government of Himachal
Pradesh for 80 rural green houses.
The PRI Toolkit will be developed with the help of our
learning of the yatras which will guide local governance
institutions, Panchayats and grassroots governance
bodies across the country to actively take up eco-habitat
development in their spheres of influence
Case studies of good practices in eco-habitat will be
compiled and shared for replication and upscaling
Key Impacts of Lok Awaas Yatra (LAY) are:





It has helped in identifying this Yatra as a campaign tool
for advocacy
Recognition of traditional and alternative technologies of
habitat development by respective state governments
which can be easily upscaled across the region
Acceptance of the concept of ’mason’s guild - Tara
Karigar Mandal’ by the market as well as by the end
users who are instrumental in advocating and promoting
energy efficient technologies.
Influencing state policies for amendments on the
Government of Madhya Pradesh’s schedule of rates as
well as resolving the issue of shortage of houses in
collaboration with the State Housing Mission through
replicable models of rural housing
Capacity Building of Panchayati Raj Institutions, local
line department officials and small- and medium-scale



enterprises towards sustainable habitat development
and management.
Advocate the participation of the stakeholders for
sustainable eco-habitat development practices
Mitigate Climate Change by learning and implementing
good eco-habitat practices in various regions of the
country
Throwing light on the yatras’ positive effects on
Governance patterns, participation and sustainable
habitat development and management at multiple levels
and easing the ways and means of access to
entitlements.
4 - Sustainability
The Lok Awaas Yatra is a unique campaign for policy advocacy that has
influenced various state-level policy environments to prioritise their action on
eco-habitat development for the underpriviledged communiites in rural areas
and built the capacities of the Panchayati Raj Institutions, local line
department officials and small- and medium-scale enterprises towards
sustainable habitat development and management.
basin-South Asia will continue to conduct the Yatras in other geo-climatic
zones of the country as well as in other SAARC countries like Nepal,
Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka for scaling up and replicating good ecohabitat practices in other regions of South Asia.
The learning of the yatras will be used to prepare the PRI Toolkit which will
guide local governance institutions, Panchayats and grass roots governance
bodies across the country to actively take up eco-habitat development in their
spheres of influence. The PRI Toolkit will also be shared with the various
nodal agencies working to promote the concept of eco-habitat development.
These nodal agencies include the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD),
Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI)
and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) / Reserve Bank of India (RBI). All these
agencies have various sub line departments under them that work directly
with the grass root governance bodies and local governance institutions. For
instance, under the Ministry of Urban Development, Housing Urban
Development Corporation (HUDCO) and Building Material Technology
Promotion Council (BMTPC) have been working to promote energy efficient
and alternate technologies for eco-habitat development.
5 - Innovation
Lok Awaas Yatra is a unique tool for inspiring and promoting a more
pragmatic approach to habitat development in an environmentally
sustainable manner. It celebrates the achievements of select initiatives on
rural habitat development in India that have improved the quality of life of the
people without compromising on caring for the environment.
The Yatra aims to make concrete policy influence in the form of orienting
local and national policy-making towards sustainable habitat practices. The
Yatra is unique in the sense that it does not limit itself to indoor seminar or
conference deliberations to promote eco-habitat practices but channels
people in such a way that they get to see and experience the impact of good
practices through on field demonstrations and followed-up through detailed
sessions. The Lok Awaas Yatra offers a platform to innovate through overall
conception and execution. This statement can be verified through the fact
that the Government of Madhya Pradesh has invited LAY to be a Steering
Committee member to formulate the Five Year Plan that influences policymaking, and scheduling other imperatives and agendas related to ecohabitat.
Lok Awaas Yatra offers tremendous scope for replication and scaling up
towards creating safe and sustainable eco-habitat. As far as the condition of
rural housing in India is considered, the current housing shortage stands at
about 40 million houses in rural spaces alone for the period of the Twelfth
Five Year Plan (2012-2017). The Government of India has initiated
numerous programmes and policies to provide housing and infrastructure
support for all. The lacuna is primarily due to lack of awareness among the
rural people about the benefits accrued to them, information about new
materials and technologies, existing bottlenecks in technical supports, dearth
of supply of eco-materials, inadequate skills and poor access to finance, as
well as many other barriers in the road to development, including inequities,
poor governance capacities, etc. The LAY helps in filling up these gaps and
creating options for livelihood in eco-habitat.
The Yatra will deliver the following outputs:

Capacity building on sustainable technology
adaptation: Training
of
more
than
250
individualsselected from Panchayats, civil society
representatives, government officers at the block level,
and artisans through the 5 sub-Yatras and theLok Awaas
Karmi Sammelan;

Create
awareness among the participants from
different walks of life such as community members, PRIs,
students and the masses at large through extensive
communication tools.
6 - Replicability
a. Creation of knowledge products: Besides acquiring knowledge
from the actual journey to successful completion of projects, the Yatra
would also include the development of 60 case studies to highlight
energy efficient and sustainable habitat development initiatives, tools for
dissemination of sustainable habitat and informative methods in the form
of posters, film and brochures, and
b. A sustainable habitat development guide book as a tool kitfor
the Panchayats
The initiative has already been replicated in five regions of the country. After
analysing the feedback from the various regions and studying the scenario
of rural housing in various South Asian countries, basin–South Asia will
carry forward this initiative in other geo-climatic regions of rural India such as
the North-East part of India as well as in other SAARC countries like Bhutan,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
The scaling up can be achieved by forming key partnerships between state
government officials, habitat practioners, existing designated networks like
State Institute of Rural Development (SIRD), regional Housing Urban
Development Corporation (HUDCO) centres, civil society organisations
(CSOs), etc., in various geo-climatic zones of the country.
Areas of Contribution:
a. Job Creation: During the Yatra process, , good practices of eco-habitat
development were demonstrated in an endeavour to build the capacities of
the yatris for sustainable habitat development and manufacture energy
efficient building materials. This Yatra built upon the capacities of the yatris
to take forward the process of initiative by forming mason guild or opening
up their own small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) to manufacture
building materials. These mason guilds and SMEs are now successfully
working in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Central Bihar and Orissa.
b. Income-generation: Capacity building of the rural communities to form
mason’s guild and establish small and medium scale enterprises has
resulted in additional income to the yatris by adopting new and innovative
manufacturing techniques. These masons were earlier working on their
own; forming mason’s guilds has helped them in taking up larger projects
and earn more.
7 - Contribution
c. Infrastructure development: The rural communities in India do not have
access to proper infrastructure facilities due to high cost of building materials,
poor access to information about new materials and technologies,
bottlenecks in technical supports, lack of supply of eco-materials, inadequate
skills and poor access to finance, that are only a few amongst numerous
other development barriers such as inequities, poor governance capacities,
etc. The Lok Awaas yatra creates awareness, disseminates strategies for
eco-habitat development and builds up the capacities of the Panchayati Raj
Institutions, local line departments in all of the above categories. For example
in eastern yatra for provision of clean drinking water Jal TARA Filter
technology was demonstrated.
g. Networks: The initiative has helped in forming networks with civil society
organisations, grass root practioners, Panchayati Raj Institutions and state
and district level officers across 5 vulnerable geo-climatic zones in India.
These networks act as a facilitator for holding the yatras. These networks
have further continued sharing the learnings and experiences of the yatras
in their networks towards creating sustainable and eco-habitat development
for all.
h. Environment: The construction sector is the largest contributor to
greenhouse gas emissions. This sector constitutes an estimated 17% of the
total CO2 emissions in India. This sector is also one of the key sectors with
the potential of radically reducing greenhouse emissions and resource
intensities through the mainstreaming of eco-friendly construction, Promoting
good practices of eco-habitat development through the Lok Awaas Yatra has
surely helped us in mitigating climate change in a long run. The yatra has
demonstrated various energy efficient technologies such as using of earth
soil for constructing houses.
The awareness about the initiative was created through various
mediums such as:

8 - Awareness






9 - Other
Lok Awaas Yatra website http://lokawaasyatra.net/as
also websites of all the partners who have supported this
initiative. The initiative receives more than 30,000 hits in
a month.
Newsletter/Articles in regional newspapers
Audio-visual documentation
IEC materials such as brochures, alerts, reports,
workbooks, orientation and capacity building modules.
Presentations in various Government departments such
as Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India;
National Housing Bank; Housing Urban and
Development Corporation (HUDCO); Building Material
Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC), and private
sector organisations like TATA Steel, Arcelor Mittal, etc.
Interactions in various state, national and international
forums.
Through partners networks
1. Lok Awaas Karmi Sammelan – National Conference on Ecohabitat Development for All
Lok Awaas Karmi Sammelan - ‘National Meet on Eco-habitat Development
for All’ is a national level confluence of the regional Yatras, conducted under
the aegis of the Lok Awaas Yatra. The objective of the Sammelan is to share
knowledge on ‘replicable low carbon solutions for eco-habitat
development in rural India and build consensus on policy imperatives
for facilitating eco-habitat creation across the country’. The Sammelan
will provide a forum to policy makers to experience the learnings gained from
the Yatras and derive lessons which will help in planning and managing
sustainable habitat development via the various rural housing processes.
The aim is to reduce the vulnerabilityat the local level, generate new
opportunities for poverty reduction while responding to climate change
concerns of national and global support.
The Sammelan is an opportunity to discuss strategies for scaling up and
replicating ecohabitat best practices with the help of PRI Institutions so
that more and more people can have access to sustainable habitat.
Theimpacts and implication of scaling up and its influence on the
climatewill be discussed for the greater good of promoting
sustainable habitat development.
2. basin (Building Advisory Service and information Network)South Asia
The ‘building advisory service and information network’, basin, was set up in
1988 to provide information and advice on appropriate building technologies
to habitat practitioners. Based on the changing needs of the client base, the
network was decentralised in November 2004 andbasin-South Asia was
born to facilitate access to and transfer of knowledge on rural habitat and
livelihood issues for such seekers in South Asia.
basin-South Asia (basin-SA) Regional Knowledge Platform, aspires to
become “the leading network committed to developing knowledge systems
and promoting collaborative action within South Asia to enable access by the
poor to sustainable habitat and livelihoods.” Managed by a network of 14
agencies from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, it is a
neutral platform for knowledge consolidation, dialogue and dissemination on
workable solutions for sustainable habitat and livelihoods in the region.
Details: www.basinsa.net
3. Development Alternatives
Development Alternatives is a non-profit organisation engaged in research
and action for sustainable development. It was established in 1983 and is
registered under the Societies Registration Act with the Government of India.
Development Alternatives believes that ‘development’, is a dynamic process,
all about evolving inter-relationships between technical, social and
environmental factors, particularly interactions between nature, machines,
institutions and people. The activities of Development Alternatives Group
broadly cover the three primary areas that underlie any form of sustainable
development process: the design and large-scale dissemination of
appropriate technologies, environmental management systems and effective
people-oriented institutions and policies.
Development Alternatives and its associate organisations operate on the
philosophy that sustainable development benefits not only the economy, but
also the environment and above all - the people. Development Alternatives
believes that the key to achieve this is the creation of sustainable livelihoods
in large numbers and that the basis of a better future, and the prime need of
our people, is jobs and creation of self employment opportunities. Jobs that
provide a decent income and give meaning and dignity to life, produce goods
and services for the local market, do not destroy the environment or the
resource base, but bring the poor and downtrodden, the women and the
marginalized, into the mainstream.
Its core Program Areas of focus are:
 Habitat
 Energy
 Water
 Clean Technology and Social Empowerment
Development Alternatives works through:

Innovation: of technologies, methodologies and institutional
frameworks

Action: Demonstration of good practice in focus program
areas economically viable, environmentally sound and socially
relevant technology packages and management systems are
developed and demonstrated for widespread delivery of products
and services at decentralized scale.

Outreach: The Development Alternatives Group develops
models for mass dissemination of sustainable technologies through
network partners to demonstrate the feasibility of its models.
For details refer: www.devalt.org