The state, cooperation and community involvement in housing: the Indian scene

[Torres47]

Living in communities has always been a way of life in the Indian society. With an extensively diverse cultural pluralism, caste and community based living had been in existence with socio-spatial segregation in our cities. The early roots of State involvement and contemporary housing cooperation could be traced to the year 1904 when the Cooperative Credit Societies Act was enacted. This was later amended in 1912 to facilitate formation of societies for other purposes too.

The underlying principle of social regulation, at a time when individualism was the order of the day, was propagated by the early societies which received a great deal of social support. Even before the commencement of planning in India, ‘cooperative housing societies have attempted, to a limited extent, to provide accommodation to the middle and lower income groups.

The then Madras and Bombay states have been centers of cooperative activity in this direction. By 1948, there were 315 house building societies in Bombay, 136 societies in Uttar Pradesh by the year 1949 and 273 societies by 1950 in Bombay. The Textile Labor Association at Ahmedabad organized workers into co-operatives for house building. The pioneers in this field were the Bangalore Building Cooperative Society (1909) and the Bombay Cooperative Housing Association (1913).

In Kerala also scores of similar housing cooperatives came into being. When quality housing was a pipe dream for many, these cooperatives could affect a change in the situation by offering houses to the needy at affordable costs. In recent times due to the continuing appreciation in the values of properties Kerala state government run cooperatives are now taking a back seat and have given a free hand to the private sector.