MYSTERY OF A 20-ROOM HOUSE IN KANDHAMAL

Domestic remittances are constructing a new world in Odisha’s underdeveloped district

- Nidheesh MK

Daringbadi, Odisha: A huge, unpainted house stands on the outskirts of Jidingimala village, in an area surrounded with forests and hills, in Odisha’s Kandhamal district. Its scale is in sharp contrast to what you see around, a neighbourhood where people mostly live in smaller houses or huts.

Kandhamal was once one of India’s most underdeveloped districts. It still ranks 29th out of Odisha’s 30 districts on the state’s Human Development Index. However, the symptoms of abysmal poverty that previously characterized its villages—children dying of starvation, tribal moms exchanging kidneys for food, houses that are one rain away from destruction—are gradually vanishing.

The house we are interested in has about 20 rooms distributed evenly along a long corridor. The walls, however, aren’t symmetrical. They appear slanted from certain angles. There’s a reason why. No professional developer or architect was engaged. It is being assembled by Nimindra Pradhan, a farmer turned migrant worker, whose life far away from home made him rather prosperous.

Pradhan has already finished doing the walls, the rooms and the roof himself to cut labour costs, relying on the skills he picked up as a migrant construction worker in Kerala. He has spent over ₹27 lakh already. Switchboards, plywood, windows, glass, and other materials needed to complete the construction have been purchased.