Pucca and kutcha houses
Also called: Kutcha house, Pucca house · Topic: Human Settlements and Urbanisation in India · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
A pucca house is a permanent house. Both its walls and its roof are made of strong materials that last for many years, such as burnt brick, stone, cement, concrete, tiles or metal sheets. A kutcha house is a temporary house. Its walls and roof are made of materials that wear out quickly, such as mud, unburnt brick, grass, thatch (dried straw or leaves), bamboo or wood. The Census sorts houses into these groups by the material of the walls and roof. Officials use this to measure how well people are housed. The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana–Gramin (PMAY-G), launched on 20 November 2016, uses it to pick who gets help: rural families who are homeless or live in kutcha or broken-down houses get a grant to build a pucca house. The grant is ₹1.20 lakh in the plains and ₹1.30 lakh in the north-eastern and hill states.
Example
In Balangir district of western Odisha, many poor rural families live in mud-walled houses with thatched roofs. These are kutcha houses. They get damaged in heavy monsoon rain and need repair every year. Under PMAY-G, such families get money to build a pucca house of brick and cement.
Don't confuse with
- Semi-pucca house: only one part is permanent. For example, the walls are brick but the roof is thatch. A pucca house needs both the walls and the roof to be permanent.