The floods that ravaged Kerala in August have swept away 1,300 homes in Wayanad, and the district collectorate pegs the loss estimate at Rs 2,300 crore.

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“Nearly 1,000 crore of these losses is the estimate of damage to infrastructure and housing,” said Ajayakumar AR, District Collector, Wayanad, speaking exclusively to CNBC-TV18.

“The priority to rebuild homes as soon as possible,” the collector added, “The process could take anywhere between six months to a year.”

While the road to recovery might seem long, and the task at hand herculean, the district administration maintains that funding is not a problem.

SEEDS volunteers at work in Wayanad.

For every home lost in the floods, the Kerala Government has set aside a budget of Rs 4 lakh, towards its reconstruction. In the meanwhile, non-government organizations like SEEDS, have partnered with the local administration, to construct “transitional shelters” for residents who lost homes to the deluge.

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A team of volunteers and architects are engaged with the Kerala government, to replicate the model, and build more shelters across Wayanad. To keep costs low and enhance sustainability, SEEDS’ team of architects has begun using locally-available areca nut timber. The immediate goal is to build 253 transitional shelters.

"We have nine different places where we are working, at the moment,” said Aakash Vishwakarma, Lead Architect, SEEDS.

“We are also getting our teams to work at nine different places at the same time. If we are starting off with 10 houses per day, that means in three days’ time, we get to complete ten houses every day.”

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First Published:Oct 11, 2018 2:34 PM IST