India is one of the cyclone/typhoon vulnerable countries with high annual frequency in the Asia-Pacific region. Majority of the Indian coastline accommodates several thousands of rural villages. The most common form of damage during the landfall of cyclones includes collapse of non-engineered and semi-engineered dwellings. For minimizing the extent of damage to such dwellings, it is preferable to maximize the strength of these dwellings by adopting affordable and cost-effective improvements in structural schemes using locally available materials, choice of plan shapes, better detailing procedures, etc. The paper initially highlights the surveys conducted in a few villages located in the east-coast of India during 1997-1999 based on a detailed questionnaire prepared by CSIR-SERC to collect information about the total number of non-engineered and semi-engineered dwellings along with details of materials and construction methodologies adopted. This paper presents various tests conducted for evaluating the strength of various components of different dwellings, which are fabricated using locally available/conventionally adopted materials, under various types of loading by considering generally adopted detailing and by considering better detailing approaches. The use of galvanized 'U' bolts for some of the critical joints in such houses are recommended to improve their resistance against cyclonic winds. Further, the formulated simple guidelines/recommendations based on these studies have been disseminated to the public through community programmes, posters and brouchers in vernacular languages corresponding to various coastal regions of India. These guidelines/recommendations have also been standardized [IS:15498 (2004)].