Fifteen poor families of Panibandha village in Ganjam district of Odisha, whose houses were completely destroyed by the Phailin cyclone of 2012, are still living in extreme low cost, cyclone resistant houses built with traditional technology.
It has proved that the same traditional technology can be used to make houses for the tribals and Dalits in the cyclone-prone areas of south Odisha. These 15 families are yet to get houses under the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) under Phailin restoration project. Houses of 22 Dalit families were completely destroyed in the cyclone that hit Ganjam coast on October 13, 2012. They had lived under polythene sheets for one-and-half years. In 2014, the European Commission’s Humanitarian Office (ECHO) had financed construction of cyclone-resistant houses using traditional technology through ‘Actionaid’.
Till now only seven of these families have received IAY houses and the rest are living in those houses built with traditional technology.
Each of these cyclone resistant houses was constructed at a cost of only Rs.37,000. According to Mangaraj Panda, convener of Ganjam district Disaster Response Forum (GDRF), this was a makeshift arrangement. “The houses were expected to serve the purpose for at the most two years. But these families are regularly maintaining the houses to increase their longevity,” he said.
Traditional building material, bamboo, had been extensively used in these houses as it is more flexible than other conventional building materials. These houses do not have any concrete pillars. Instead, empty 15 litre oil cans filled with concrete were buried in the ground to serve as foundation pillars. Strong bamboo poles inside these cans form the pillar . The plinth is two-and-a-half feet high to save them from flooding during rain. The walls are made of nettings of bamboo strips covered by a mixture of cow dung and clay. Tin roofs were used to minimise the damage in case of collapse during cyclones. “The plinth, the roof as well as the four walls were tied by long bamboo poles. Flexibility of bamboo was the greatest strength of these houses,” said Mini Mohapatra, a social activist of Panibandha area.
