The Hindu Business Line : Building housing the ‘Kalavara’ way

It has all the makings to emerge as yet another ‘Kerala model’, this time in the property development sector that remains largely out of reach for the lower end of the social spectrum.

This initiative of the Kerala Government seeks to provide quality building materials to the poor at affordable prices by establishing a supply chain across the State.

The Kerala State Nirmithi Kendra (KESNEK), under the Department of Housing, has launched the programme, named ‘Kalavara’, by opening an outlet in Ernakulam in May this year and another in Kozhikode in August. The third outlet was opened in Thiruvananthapuram on October 29.

Speaking to Business Line, the Minister for Housing and Forest, Mr Binoy Viswam, says the target is to open such sales outlets in all the district headquarters in the State. The department has already set in motion the measures to achieve the goal at the earliest.

KESNEK was formed in 1989 to promote housing and habitat development through cost-effective and environment-friendly technology. It has set up 14 regional centres in the State to extend guidance on building technology as also trading in building materials.

Steel rods, cement

The ‘Kalavara’ programme aims at controlling the rise in the prices of materials and make them available to the poor at fair prices ‘to help them realise the dream of owning a house’. In the initial stage, materials such as steel rods with ISI mark, cement and sand, and products such as hollow concrete blocks, concrete doors, ferro cement items and concrete window frames are supplied through the outlets.

The products are made by the Nirmithi Kendra itself, while the steel rods are mainly sourced from the central public sector Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd and the cement from the state-owned Malabar Cements Ltd.

Efforts are on to get more public sector steel making units to participate in the programme. There is also a proposal to manufacture sand from crushed rock and brand it as ‘N-sand’.

KESNEK has worked out a scheme under which families below the poverty line (BPL) and planning to build houses of up to 600 sq.ft are supplied materials without profit margin. They will be eligible for a maximum of 100 bags of cement and 500 kg of steel rods.

Those planning houses above an area of 600 sq.ft are supplied the materials at lower-than-market prices but at a small profit margin.

The various Government-sponsored housing projects in the State were expected to benefit from the venture, KESNEK officials said.

Despite the shortage of building materials in the market in recent times, the KESNEK outlets in Ernakulam and Kozhikode were able to sell over 2,000 bags of cement and about 80 tonnes of steel rods for a total of Rs 50 lakh, they said.