After driving in the world's cheapest car -- Nano, sporting a price tag of $2500, and the cheapest water filter at $21 with Swach, the Tata group has now set its sights on building the world's cheapest house by the end of the year priced at just Rs 32000 (Euro 500)! What's more, nicknamed the `Euro 500 home', a 20 square metre house works out to less than Rs 32,000 and can be built from scratch in just a week flat.
All one needs is a small piece of land and a kit of parts like doors, windows, roofs made out of different materials.
Currently being pilot-tested in West Bengal, the world's cheapest home is the brainchild of a team of nearly 15 innovators from Tata Steel's Indian and European operations and will be cheaper than the Tata group's own `Nano homes' project promising homes for $7,800 to urban poor that was rolled out a couple of years ago.
"These houses are typically targeted at beneficiaries of the Indira Awaas Yojana, that has an outlay of around Rs 40,000 per house. The challenge is to make it cheaper and more acceptable to rural users because many pre-fab manufacturers have built demo homes across the country but have failed to gain popularity," said Sumitesh Das, who heads Tata Steel's global research programme, on Friday.
"We have already prepared 2-3 different designs based on discussions with users and are gathering more feedback. Hopefully, in the next 6-8 months we should be able to roll it out in the market nationally," explained Das, who was in town to participate in a conference on intellectual property organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.
Apart from the basic version, the company is also working on higher end versions like a 30 square metre home for Euro 700 or higher for homes boasting of facilities like a solar panel on the roof or a veranda.
