Fly-ash Enriched Earthen Un-Burnt Bricks for Low-cost Housing

In spite of various major steps taken by the Governments, housing problem in rural India is becoming bad to worse due to population explosion and their low income. Various low-cost housing schemes has been floated through use of cheaper construction materials. Therefore, development of new cheaper materials has become need of the day. This can be possible by production of new materials produced from various by-products or wastes justifying the slogan converting ‘Wastes into Wealth’. Fly ash, a coal combustion by-product available in power plants is one such material available in plenty in our surroundings those are posing problem to the environment. Presently, these are utilised by mixing various cementitious materials in production of bricks, those are substituting conventional bricks, for their cost effectiveness. But, the extreme poor people of tribal areas are deprived of using these bricks in their houses due to non-availability and financial constraints. Most of tribal houses in KBK districts of Odisha, Eastern and Central rural of Chhattisgarh, some parts of Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal are made of walls with twigs plastered with mud and Nauria tiled roofing. To bridge the gap a new product ‘Fly ash Enriched Earthen Unburnt brick’ has been proposed. Necessary laboratory tests for the proposed product has been carried and their suitability is presented in this paper. Poor people who can’t afford for standard bricks for their houses, this can be an alternate cheaper solution for them.