ABSTRACT
Two years after the 2001 Gujarat earthquake struck the city of Bhuj, a group of activists, a local newspaper, a regional NGO and a local architectural firm negotiated with the local authority to allocate assistance and land to disaster-stricken, low-income renters who had lost their places of residence. While it was estimated that rental units accounted for 40 percent of the housing loss and around 4,000 renters lost their homes, housing reconstruction policies did not consider any direct assistance allocation to these households (Tafti and Tomlinson 2013). Having no housing option after the earthquake, these renters resided in a site known as GIDC (Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation), which had been initially planned as temporary housing on the urban periphery. As a result of the advocacy and negotiation of non-governmental entities and their partnership with local and state governments, a housing project was developed to provide housing for around 450 of these households at the same site.
