Lights finally come on for Indian village

Yahoo – AFP, Bhuvan Bagga, May 16, 2016

Government figures show that more than 300 million people in India still have
no access to electricity (AFP Photo/Money Sharma)

Anandpur (India) (AFP) - Ram Kishore searched long and hard to find a suitable wife for his son, but his efforts only paid off when electricity finally came to his village in rural north India this year.

It was not until the power pylons were installed as part of a government scheme to connect thousands of villages to the national grid that Kishore could persuade a prospective bride's parents to part with their daughter.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took 

power after winning elections in May 2014

promising to make India "open for 

business" (AFP Photo)

Now he is all smiles as he sits under a glowing light bulb in his single-room home in Anandpur village. Just 145 miles (230 kilometres) from the capital New Delhi, it has never had electricity -- until now.

"I will personally invite my daughter-in-law's family to visit us and look at the electricity meter," the 60-year-old former labourer told AFP proudly after his house was connected.

Anandpur is just one beneficiary of an ambitious plan Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in his Independence Day speech last August to bring electricity to 18,452 Indian villages.

Government figures released last year showed that more than 300 million people in India -- the world's fastest-growing major economy -- still had no access to electricity.

Per-capital electricity consumption is barely one third of the global average.

Speaking from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi, Modi said those villagers had been "deprived of the rays of development," promising to finish the job within 1,000 days and saying the country was "not ready to wait for 10 years".

It has not been an easy task.

Dinesh Arora, who runs the scheme for the power ministry, says the communities targeted are the "the toughest villages in most extreme corners of the country".

Indian villager Ram Kishore sits beneath a newly installed electricity meter at his

 home in the village of Anandpur in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh (AFP Photo/

Money Sharma)

Many cannot be reached by road or are in areas riven by violence.

Two of Arora's engineers were kidnapped and roughed up by Maoist guerrillas, while another team had to swim across a river to reach their destination.

Even once they reached the villages, some were given a hostile reception by residents suspicious of local governments that had given them little help in the past.

India's federal structure has added to the challenges, with electricity provision usually handled at the state level.

Each state has its own, often loss-making power providers, which are not always eager to extend provision to the poorest villages where revenues are unlikely to justify the cost.

Nonetheless, since Modi launched the scheme, over 7,700 villages have been connected to the grid.

'Everything will change'

As the main power line to Anandpur is switched on, the local men who had gathered excitedly round the visiting officials to watch the run screaming towards their mostly mud and brick houses yelling, "did it come?".

Anandpur village is just one beneficiary of an ambitious plan Indian Prime Minister

 Narendra Modi announced to bring electricity to 18,452 Indian villages (AFP 

Photo/Money Sharma)

"My husband has promised that we will now buy a fan and sleep peacefully at night, without mosquitoes," said Urmila Devi, who lived in a village with electricity before she married and has had to get used to kerosene lamps in Anandpur.

Each of the village's 120 residents has a different take -- some women are looking forward to being able to cook indoors even after dark, which has been impossible without electric lighting.

For young men like farm labourer Neeraj Singh, electricity means have a mobile phone that works.

"Having to use a solar cell to charge was time consuming and my phone battery would stay flat for days every month," he says.

For the children of the village, most of whom children cannot read or write and have never been to school, electricity means being able to carry on playing even after sunset.

"I had once watched television at my aunt's place and really enjoyed it," said Lakshmi.

"Now, I will ask my father to get us one."

Only 18 of the 25 households in Anandpur agreed to get connected and have the free electricity metre installed -- the other seven were unsure they could afford the monthly bill of between $1 and $2.

But 55-year-old Devi is certain that the arrival of electricity is a boon for her village.

"Everything will change now," she said.  

From ghost city to boomtown, Phnom Penh soars high

Yahoo – AFP, Suy Se, 20 December 2015

Phnom Penh is second only to Laos in East Asia for the fastest rate of urban 

spatial expansion, according to the World Bank (AFP Photo/Tang Chhin Sothy)

From glitzy malls and high-rise flats to five-star hotels, a luxury building boom in Phnom Penh is transforming a capital once reduced to a ghost town into one of Asia's fastest growing cities.

Inside the recently opened Aeon Mall in the heart of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's first mega shopping centre, shoppers and curious residents flock to see the latest Levi's and Giordano handbags, snapping selfies in front of a giant Christmas tree.

It is a common scene across much of Southeast Asia but was previously unimaginable for many in Cambodia where around 20 percent of people still live on less than $1.25 per day.

But while poverty remains entrenched, a fast-growing middle class and elite are increasingly looking for local ways to spend their cash.

"I am glad we have such a modern mall in Phnom Penh. It shows the city is growing," says 20-year-old Bopha, a well-heeled university student who said her family made more than $1 million in a recent land sale.

Inside the recently opened Aeon Mall in the heart of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's 

first mega shopping centre, shoppers and curious residents flock to see the latest

 Levi's and Giordano handbags, snapping selfies in front of a giant Christmas tree

(AFP Photo/Tang Chhin Sothy)

Bopha said she used to have to travel to Thailand and Singapore for her shopping trips but that was now changing.

"Their cities are crowded with high-rise towers. I think we are heading in the same direction to be like them," she beamed.

The $200 million Japanese-built mall is just one of dozens of new shopping complexes, condominium projects and hotels springing up in Phnom Penh as Cambodia rides a wave of high economic growth rates in recent years.

The capital is second only to Laos in East Asia for the fastest rate of urban spatial expansion, according to the World Bank, and its economy is expected to grow at 6.9 percent this year.

Rise of the high-rise

All across the city luxury high-rise condos are popping up with names like "The Peak" and "Diamond Island", complete with billboards promising aspirational taglines such as "Sophisticated Urban Living".

A ferry sails past the five-star Sokha hotel in Phnom Penh (AFP Photo/

Tang Chhin Sothy)

According to the government, Cambodia drew construction investment worth $1.75 billion in the first nine months of 2015, a 13.7 percent rise from a year earlier.

Many of the new entrants into the kingdom's building market are developers from Japan, China, South Korea and Singapore.

The 39-storey Vattanac Capital Tower, Cambodia's first skyscraper which was finished in 2014, is designed in the shape of a dragon and incorporates Chinese traditional feng shui principles.

A few kilometres (miles) away, the local Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation is drawing from the country's past, building Parisian-style apartments framed by a replica of the Arc de Triomphe on a riverside complex in downtown Phnom Penh.

But some are worried where the construction frenzy will leave a city once famed as the "Pearl of Asia".

In its French colonial heyday Phnom Penh was regarded as one of the loveliest cities in Southeast Asia thanks to its wide European-style avenues, carefully manicured gardens and picturesque stately homes.

Just a few decades later, the buzzing city was reduced to a ghost town when Pol Pot's brutal Khmer Rouge army seized control of the capital and ordered its two million people to evacuate.

Phnom Penh has been coming back to life since the radical communist regime

 was toppled in 1979 but the surge of activity and change to its landscape has

intensified in recent years (AFP Photo/Tang Chhin Sothy)

The city has been coming back to life since the radical communist regime was toppled in 1979 but the surge of activity and change to its landscape has intensified in recent years.

Poor pushed to city fringes

Silas Everett of The Asia Foundation in Cambodia fears the city's original charm is fast disappearing with villas and stately buildings from the colonial era being torn down to make room for lucrative new construction projects.

"Phnom Penh's architectural heritage is world renowned... Yet the rate of destruction of these buildings of significant cultural heritage is alarming," said Everett, mourning in particular the loss of buildings designed by famed Cambodian architect Vann Molyvann.

And while wealthy Cambodians are lining up for a chance to live in some of the city's most coveted new addresses, the urban poor are increasingly relegated to the edges of the capital where many were evicted to make way for commercial developments.

Critics of strongman premier Hun Sen, who has ruled with an iron fist for the last 30 years, say he has turned Cambodia into a notoriously corrupt fiefdom where those loyal to him are handsomely enriched.

But he remains unapologetic about the capital's rapid transformation.

Experts worry that Phnom Penh's original charm is disappearing with villas 

and stately buildings from the colonial era being torn down to make room for

lucrative new construction projects (AFP Photo/Tang Chhin Sothy)

Phnom Penh, he said during a speech in November, would have been a "coconut plantation" had the Khmer Rouge remained.

Instead, he added, "an already dead city survived through the bare hands of our people".

Not everyone has benefited, however.

Strolling through Aeon Mall, Seng Seat, 60, says most of the products remain outside her budget.

"The price of some clothes and shoes at the retail brand shops is too expensive," Seat said.

"I just had a look at the price and left immediately."

Strong public health message on UN World Toilet Day

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been leading calls for improved sanitation on World Toilet Day. Billions still suffer from a lack of proper toilets and the accompanying, heightened risk of serious illness.

Deutsche Welle, 19 Nov 2015

The United Nations says 2.4 billion people around the world don't have access to decent sanitation and more than a billion are forced to defecate out in the open. The world's population is currently just under 7.5 billion.

The UN launched World Toilet Day (19.11.2015) with a strong public health message. Poor sanitation, it said, increases the risk of illness and malnutrition, especially for children.

The UN also said that women and girls in particular need safe, clean facilities.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that one in three women around the world had no access to safe toilets. "As a result they face disease, shame and potential violence when they seek a place to defecate."

In Ghana's Northern region, it's estimated that seven out of ten people - men, women and children - have no access to toilet facilities, neither in their home nor in public spaces.

But some people who have access to public toilets prefer the bush. "Inside the toilet it is always hot, it is better to consider the forest. Also they don't keep them clean. That's the main reason why I won't use a public toilet," one man in Tamale told DW.

DW visited a public toilet in Tamale where people pay a small gratuity. It was in a filthy condition.

"Toilets can't always be cleaned. Sometimes the caretaker will have additional work somewhere else so he has no time to keep things clean," the toilet attendant said.

Ban Ki-moon:'We have a moral
imperative to end open defecation'

An estimated 18,000 Ghanaians, including 5,000 children under the age of five, die every year from ailments related to poor sanitation.

Convention and customs?

The UN Millennium Development Goals, which are supposed to be achieved this year, call for the halving of the proportion of the population without access to basic sanitation.

Ban said that by many accounts, this will be "the most-missed target."

In 2013, the UN launched a campaign to end defecation in the open by 2025. In sub-Sharan Africa, 36 percent of the population were not using toilets in 1990. Twenty-five years later that figure now stands at 25 percent.

In a World Toilet Day press release, the UN says open defecation is deeply rooted in poverty, but has also been linked to convention and customs in some countries and societies. It represents some of the only times other than worship where women from rigid family circumstances may meet one another.

Maxwell Suuk in Tamale contributed to this report.

Court Ruling Dries Up Private Water Provision in Jakarta

Jakarta Globe, Lenny Tristia Tambun, Mar 25, 2015

City-owned water operator PAM Jaya will now handle water supply to
Jakarta exclusively. (JG Photo/Jurnasyanto Sukarno)

Jakarta. Two private companies have lost their right to supply water to customers in some parts of Jakarta after a court ruled in favor of a coalition seeking to have water privatization struck down.

PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja) and Aetra Air Jakarta (Aetra) had their contracts with city-owned water operator PAM Jaya severed by the Central Jakarta District Court on Monday, ending an 18-year partnership.

Jakarta City Council will form a transition team to take over their operations, while Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama has said employees of the two companies could possibly find employment with PAM Jaya.

“They are professional workers and we cannot abandon them, we will make preparations so they can work at PAM Jaya,” Basuki was quoted as saying by Tempo.co on Wednesday.

Basuki said he was confident PAM Jaya would be able to manage the capital’s water distribution without Palyja and Aetra.

The court ruling ends a controversial experiment in water privatization in Jakarta, and is a major victory for the Coalition of People Rejecting the Privatization of Water in Jakarta (KMMSAJ), which filed the lawsuit.

The group had argued that the sub-contracted water service was too expensive and many Jakarta residents could not afford it.

The coalition, which includes the Jakarta Legal Aid Fuundation (LBH Jakarta), and are opposed to private ownership of water, also said the service provided by Palyja and Aetra was not up to scratch.

Both Aetra and Palyja have stated that they would file an appeal.

Aetra’s Corporate Secretary Pratama S. Adi said that the company was aware that his company’s contract with PAM Jaya was not favorable to the Jakarta City Council and it was willing to negotiate.

“We have been conducting internal consolidation and next week we will file an appeal,” Pratama said.

Palyja’s spokeswoman Meyritha Maryanie confirmed the company would challenge the ruling.

“During the legal process the contract between Palyja and PAM Jaya is still valid,” Meyritha added.

Indonesia to Build Ten New Cities on Outer Islands

Jakarta Globe, Mar 24, 2015

Development Planning Minister Andrinof Chaniago, left, wants to develop new
urban areas across Indonesia to deal with poverty and unemployment. (Antara
Foto/Vitalis Yogi Trisna)

Jakarta. The government intends to build ten new cities in remote parts of Indonesia, Andrinof Chaniago, head of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), announced on Tuesday.

The first new city will be Tanjung Selor in North Kalimantan, the new province founded in 2012 on land that used to be part of East Kalimantan province. Tanjung Selor is the capital of North Kalimantan, but currently only has 42,000 inhabitants. The administration of President Joko Widodo now wants to turn the town into a true city.

“We will start the [development of] ten cities during the term of this administration,” Andrinof said on Tuesday, as quoted by state-owned news agency Antara.

The Bappenas head explained that the purpose of  developing new urban areas throughout Indonesia was to boost equitable economic growth in the regions outside Java to decrease poverty and unemployment.

Andrinof declined to provide additional details about the plan.

Home cheap home: Vietnam architect's quest for low-cost housing

Yahoo – AFP, Cat Barton, 25 Jan 2015

Farmer Vo Van Duong rests inside a S-House 2 built in his garden in Vietnam's

 southern Mekong delta province of Long An on December 11, 2014 (AFP Photo/

Hoang Dinh Nam)

Long An (Vietnam) (AFP) - Vo Van Duong's bamboo and coconut leaf house looks much like others deep in Vietnam's Mekong Delta. But unlike them, his seemingly simple abode is designed to withstand typhoons, flooding and earthquakes -- and at a cost of less than $4,000 could herald a new wave of cheap, sustainable housing.

The natural materials on its surface belie the hi-tech internal structure of the farmer's new home, which uses steel struts and wall panels as a defence against the elements in this natural disaster-prone region.

Architect Vo Trong Nghia speaks during 

an interview with AFP in Ho Chi Minh City

on December 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Hoang

Dinh Nam)

"The new house is safer, I'm not afraid that it will collapse," the 48-year-old papaya farmer told AFP inside the house he moved into nine months ago.

Duong is testing a prototype by an award-winning Vietnamese architecture firm looking for low-cost housing solutions for communities vulnerable to climate change.

His S-House 2 was free, but if rolled-out on a wider scale could be sold for less than $4,000.

"There was water coming down from the roof in my old house. Sometimes, when there was a strong wind, I was so afraid the house wouldn't survive," Duong said, adding his new home was the envy of his neighbours.

The eco-home is the brainchild of Vo Trong Nghia, who joins other architects around the world in trying to fill a demand for cheap and easy to assemble housing -- from flat-pack refugee shelters to shipping-container homes for tsunami victims.

He says all architects have a duty to help the poor.

"What about those with low income, billions of them, how can they live?" Nghia told AFP. "They have the right to live in comfortable, functional places."

But he wants to go further, creating a home residents can take pride in.

"I don't want people to be looking at it as 'cheap houses' but as resort-quality accommodation close to nature, so (residents) can live a life of the highest quality."

Farmer Vo Van Duong in the garden of a S-House 2 in Vietnam's southern Mekong

delta province of Long An on December 11, 2014 (AFP Photo/Hoang Dinh Nam)

Flat-pack homes

The design is still being refined by his team, who are eventually aiming to create a flat-pack home. The newest version, S-House 3, can be built by five people in three hours.

"Our goal for S-house is for the owner to construct it by themselves," said Kosuke Nishijima, a partner at the firm.

The latest design also allows for multiple houses to be tacked together, a function that could allow, for example, the construction of a storm-proof school easily transportable to remote areas or a larger family home.

Nghia has already been approached by NGOs in disaster-prone Bangladesh and the Philippines, but is not yet ready to supply the house commercially.

From saline-intrusion and flooding in the Mekong Delta to typhoons along the central coast, Vietnam is also home to communities living in high risk areas.

For decades, Vietnamese families have adapted their houses themselves, many building ad hoc mezzanines to avoid flooding.

In more recent years organisations including the Red Cross and Women's Unions, as well as local authorities, have been trying to help people develop more resilient housing.

A bedroom inside an ecologically conscious traditional Vietnamese tube house

 designed by architect Vo Trong Nghia's company, in Ho Chi Minh City on 

December 12, 2014 (AFP Photo/Hoang Dinh Nam)

But in order to ensure such projects are successful, "private architects' support is critical", according to Boram Kim, an urban specialist with UN-Habitat in Vietnam.

"State and local government authorities are well aware that such houses are needed for the poor, but have little technical knowledge for realising their ideas," she told AFP.

"Architects have technical knowledge for reducing the housing construction cost while making it storm proof," she said, cautioning that it was important for designers to listen to the needs of local communities.

Architect for the poor

Nghia's firm found that one of the problems facing rural Vietnamese living in traditional bamboo shacks or stilted river-bank dwellings is the costly upkeep they require to withstand increasingly extreme weather.

Although the S-House 2's outer casing of coconut leaf may need replacing every four years, the structure itself should require no expensive maintenance, said engineer Lien Phuoc Huy Phuong.

A series of concrete slabs and gaps filled

 with plants in the facade of an ecologically

 conscious traditional Vietnamese tube house

 designed by architect Vo Trong Nghia's 

company, in Ho Chi Minh City, on December

12, 2014 (AFP Photo/Hoang Ding Nam)

"It can last a long time, the structure is sound," he told AFP during a tour of the small building. 

Despite its solid exterior, the house is spacious and airy inside, with large windows and doors to bring residents closer to nature.

"We tried to design this house with the best ventilation system, with spaces by the roof and windows for better air flow," Phuong said, pointing out strategic gaps that should reduce the need for electric fans.

Architect Nghia, who used bamboo as a key element in Vietnam's country pavilion for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, has long sought to incorporate natural and local materials into his work.

One of his first projects in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City was an ecologically-conscious take on a traditional Vietnamese tube home, known as Stacking Green house.

Built in 2011 for around $150,000, the building is made of a series of concrete slabs and gaps filled with plants to provide privacy while still allowing plenty of air and light.

Nghia is in strong demand for high-end projects from hotels to private houses, but said the low-cost S-House is his personal obsession.

"I want to live in S-House. If my family will agree," he said.

Related Article:

More info related to Bamboo ...

This Man Is Modi's Best Chance To Make India Sanitary

Business Insider –AFP, Abhaya Srivastava, Oct 2, 2014

Founder of Indian sanitation charity Sulabh International Bindeshwar Pathak (C)
demonstrates his low-cost two-pit toilet technology in New Delhi (AFP Sajjad Hussain)

New Delhi (AFP) - Surrounded by latrines and soap dispensers, sanitation charity founder Bindeshwar Pathak is most at home in the toilet, which he vows to build in every impoverished home in India.

Affectionately known as India's "toilet guru", 71-year-old Pathak has spent four decades working to improve sanitation in a country where half of the population relieve themselves in the open air.

Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, a champion of cleanliness, Pathak has more recently been spurred on by new Prime Minister Narendra Modi who wants to make India free of open defecation by 2019.   

"India has the technology and the methodology. What we lack is infrastructure," Pathak said of Modi's vision, as he took AFP on a tour of cheap, eco-friendly toilets that his New Delhi-based charity has developed.

"We also need funds to the tune of $42.3 billion considering each toilet will cost about $320," he said, making quick calculations on a piece of paper.

"We can't claim to be the next superpower when we don't even have something as basic as a toilet for everyone," he said ahead of Thursday's national holiday to celebrate the birthday of India's independence hero Gandhi.

National hygiene drive

Modi is due to launch a national cleanliness drive on Thursday, after pledging in August to ensure all households have toilets in the next five years.

From top ministers to lowly officials, all are expected to turn up to work on Thursday to clean up their government buildings -- including their toilets -- many of which stink of stale urine and are littered with rubbish and spit.

"This mission ... aspires to realise Gandhi-ji's dream of a clean India," Modi said recently after pledging during the May election campaign to build "toilets first, temples later".

"Together we can make a big difference," the Hindu nationalist said.

UNICEF estimates that almost 594 million -- or nearly 50 percent of India's population -- defecate in the open, with the situation acute in dirt-poor rural areas.

Some 300 million women and girls are forced to squat outside normally under the cover of darkness, exposed not only to the risks of disease and bacterial infection, but also harassment and assault by men.

The issue was thrown into the spotlight in late May when two girls, aged 12 and 14, were allegedly attacked as they went into the fields to relieve themselves. Police are investigating if they were gang-raped before being lynched.  

Two-pit toilet technology

Pathak, the founder of sanitation charity Sulabh International, has already constructed 1.3 million toilets for households using his cheap, two-pit technology.

When one pit is filled, it is covered, and the other pit is used. Within two years, the waste in the covered pit dries up, ridding itself of pathogens and ready for use as fertiliser.

Such toilets use less than a gallon of water per flush compared to 2.6 gallons (10 litres) for conventional latrines and do not require attachment to underground sewer lines, which are nonexistent in most villages.

Pit toilets also eliminate the need for the degrading task of manually removing toilet waste by workers who are seen as the "ultimate untouchables" in caste-ridden India.

Pathak is determined to banish the need for such "manual scavengers", who often scoop out excrement with their hands into wicker baskets, a campaign also pushed by Gandhi before his death in 1948.   

Himself an upper-class Brahmin, Pathak recounted how he was made to consume cow dung and urine as part of a "purification ritual" after he touched a woman, who used to clean latrines, as a 10-year-old boy.

"This moment has stayed with me," he said.

Pathak's charity has also harnessed "bio-gas' produced from human waste which is used to generate electricity to power the charity's offices. The gas has also been bottled for use as fuel for cooking.

Despite his achievements, Pathak said his task is far from complete, and he was determined to change cultural and social attitudes against toilets. Many people in India consider toilets unhygienic and prefer to squat in the open, believing it is more sanitary to leave waste far from your home.

"Many people (also) find toilets stifling," said Pathak. "We tell them that you can keep the top of the toilet uncovered if you want to have a feel of defecating in the open."

Employees hang just-washed donated cotton clothes that will be used

 to make cloth sanitary napkins at non-profit organisation 'Goonj' 
(Echo) in New Delhi on April 22, 2014 (AFP Photo/Sajjad Hussain)

Related Article:

US consumer giant seeks to smash India menstruation taboos

Slovak architect turns billboards into homes for the homeless

Yahoo – AFP, 10 July 2014

Slovak enviromental activists cover a controversial Slovak Telecom advertising
 billboard near the High Tatra Mountains at Vazec on June 4, 2004 (AFP
Photo/Joe Klamar)

Bratislava (AFP) - As some European cities install spikes on pavements to prevent homeless people bedding down for the night, one architect in Slovakia plans to give them a proper abode -- made from billboards.

The Gregory Project uses advertising hoardings, usually placed along roads in a V-shape to be visible from both directions, to create small but functional homes for the homeless by adding a third wall and a roof.

Slovak architect Michal Polacek told AFP he hopes his novel design will "help the homeless to return to normal life, find a job and eventually find a better place to stay".

Polacek's one-bedroom triangular homes include a kitchen and bathroom and are powered by solar panels or connected to the same network that lights the billboards at night.

He says the cost of building the homes can be covered by billboard advertising revenues.

"I was inspired by a friend who once pointed at a billboard and said 'Hey, I could live up there!' and also by the desire to help those less fortunate," Polacek added.

He has yet to construct his design but says it is available as a free, open-source platform for anyone wanting to use it.

The installation of pavement spikes to stop homeless people sleeping outside a London building sparked outrage last month, with 40,000 people signing a petition calling for their removal.

Related Article:

Advert turns air into drinking water

Li Keqiang pledges affordable housing for all in China

Want China Times, Xinhua 2014-03-13

A monitor at Beijing Railway Station broadcasts Li Keqiang's press
conference live, Mar. 13. (Photo/CNS)

China will adopt a varied approach in regulating the housing market, and curbing speculation and investment-oriented purchases, the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, said on Thursday.

At a press conference held at the end of China's annual "lianghui" — the twin meetings of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing — Li said China will increase the supply of ordinary commercial housing in the market.

A long-term mechanism will be built to ensure steady and sound growth of the housing market, the premier said.

Li said the goal of the government on the housing issue is to provide adequate housing for the entire population, noting that some 100 million Chinese still live in poor, run-down areas of cities.

He said the government will redouble efforts to overhaul run-down areas this year, pledging to rebuild 4.7 million shanty houses as proper housing.

More government-subsidized housing such as public rental properties will be built, and efforts will be made to ensure that housing is distributed equitably, he said, adding that "a small action is more important than a thousand words."

Related Article:

In Public Housing, the Rot of Corruption

In Public Housing, the Rot of Corruption

Jakarta Globe, Mar 12, 2014

A housing complex is being completed in the Greater Jakarta area.
(JG Photo/Safir Makki)

The Public Housing Ministry has come under the public glare as officials in East Nusa Tenggara investigate the possible embezzlement of funds allocated for the construction of houses for low-income residents in nine districts there.

Mangihut Sinaga, the chief judge of the East Nusa Tenggara High Court, said on Wednesday that his office had launched in inquiry into the allegation that as much as Rp 1 trillion ($88 million) had been embezzled from the fund between 2011 and 2013.

Mangihut called the case “interesting,” citing a number of irregularities that his office had uncovered in the building project, starting from the specification of the houses, to the timeline for the project, up to the use of funds for the project.

He said the funds alleged to have been embezzled covered the construction of new housing as well as other aid programs that were connected to the housing project.

“Aside from the partners and the managers of those funds, anyone in the Public Housing Ministry who is involved will be investigated, because the funds came from the ministry,” Mangihut said.

Court investigators will also be looking at the individuals responsible for the implementation of the project, with Mangihut noting that the ministry typically appointed a working unit that would have the authority over the use of funds in the region.

The court has reportedly investigated Felix Soba, the head of Ngada district, who confirmed that there was an inquiry under way into the housing project.

Felix said that under the project, 300 homes were to be built in Ngada, although only 150 units had to date been built.

“As for other issues, I cannot explain in detail because we have been questioned by the prosecutor,” he said, adding that the questioning had focused on information about the progress of the throughout the three-year period.

The court said it was also expanding its investigations to eight other districts and their top officials, including Kupang district and Kupang municipality, South Timor Tengah district, North Timor Tengah district, Belu district, East Flores district, Alor district and Central Sumba district.

The Atambua High Court in Belu is also gathering information about the public housing project in Belu and Malaka districts in 2012, according to a report on Wednesday by Tribunnews.com. The court is reportedly targeting 57 contractors involved in the project as part of its investigation.

Roberthus Takoy, the chief judge, said on Tuesday that investigators had questioned dozens of witnesses linked to the case and had decided to pursue a full criminal investigation.

“We are now focusing on the contractors handling the supply and installation of energy-saving lights and low-voltage electricity for the five villages of Saenama, Wesey, Faturika, Bisesmus and Rinbesihat,” Roberthus said, referring to the two of the programs that were part of the wider housing project.

Tribunnews.com reported that the condition of the houses that had already been built in Haliwen ward in Kupang, the provincial capital, were very poor, with most of them consisting of rusty iron frames, while others were only half-built.

Similar conditions were reportedly found in Fatubenao and Manumutin wards, where only the frames of the houses have been built, most of which have also started rusting due to the rainy season.

“The frames were built in August 2013,” said Yosep, a resident.

“Back then, they came unloading sand three times, without cement. Those working on the project even asked for our old houses to be demolished for them to be able to build new ones, but we refused.”

East Nusa Tenggara is not the only region suffering from the alleged misuse of funds in the government’s regional housing projects.

Last month, the West Kalimantan High Court detained two corruption suspects contracted by the Public Housing Ministry — Tri Eddy Nuryanto, the managing director of builder Pilar Persada, and Eko Wahyudo, an official from the company’s branch in Pontianak, the West Kalimantan capital, Inilah.com reported.

The two men were arrested on charges of alleged graft in the construction of special housing in Bengkayang district, which was included in the Public Housing Ministry’s 2012 budget.

The government has reportedly disbursed 100 percent of the Rp 6.7 trillion contract for the construction of 100 homes there, out of which only 66 were built.

In East Java, the Pamekasan High Court is also reportedly looking into alleged embezzlement of funds for a similar project targeted for some 313 low-income households in the region.

Each household reportedly received just Rp 3.5 million of the Rp 7.4 million worth of aid allocated to them by the Public Housing Ministry.

Earlier this year, Firdaus Djaelani, the executive chief for non-banking financial industry monitoring at the Financial Services Authority (OJK), said Indonesia’s need for housing stood at approximately 800,000 units annually, adding that the government still had a backlog of 15 million housing units.

The number of houses built using the Housing Finance Liquidity Facility (FLPP) — a mortgage program subsidized by the ministry to help low- and middle-income families own homes — stood at 87,765 units, or 72.5 percent of the targeted 121,000 units for 2013.

Efforts to provide more affordable housing units for low-income families also remain hampered, with the public housing savings bill, which is meant to offer an alternative and more affordable funding scheme, still being deliberated at the House of Representatives, despite Public Housing Ministry Djan Faridz declaring late last year that it would be passed by January.

In a report by Kompas.com, Panangian Simanungkalit, the executive director of the Indonesian Center of Property Studies, deplored the lack of coordination by the ministry in organizing its programs.

“The public housing savings bill is actually very vital because it has the potential to expand [Indonesia’s] capacity in funding the construction of public housing. The capacity of the FLPP has the potential to grow. If it isn’t ratified, Indonesia’s housing deficit will only grow,” he said as quoted by Kompas.com.

“The Public Housing Ministry is very weak in its coordination, not just with the House of Representatives but also with other ministries. The Public Housing Ministry is taken lightly, so it doesn’t have the government’s strong support.”

Although some supported the postponement of the bill’s passage, Panangian said the move could worsen the public’s negative perception of the government.

“The public will continue to remain apathetic and will always be negative toward housing policies and programs,” he said.

Speaking at the Public Housing National Assembly last month February, public policy expert Andrinof Chaniago dubbed the government’s public housing policy an “anomaly.”

“This anomaly in housing developments and policies is very clear,” he said.

He cited public housing policies in Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea, which he said were much clearer compared to that of Indonesia, where the government’s policies had failed to improve the welfare of the people.

“Landed homes predominate [in Indonesia], but how does this impact the people’s welfare?” he said.

“The cost of living is very high and the existing mechanism forces people to live out in the suburbs as they are haunted by the illusion that land prices will be much cheaper in those areas.”

Andrinof said that in a country as densely populated as Indonesia, the government should build more apartment blocks for its people, which could also put the brakes on rising land prices.

“We have to realize that our problem is in adopting the wrong paradigm from the 1980s up until now,” he said.

“Otherwise, our backlog will continue to grow.”