Access to facilities and basic it skills

Source: The post is based on the article “Access to facilities and basic it skills” published in The Hindu on 19th March 2023

What is the News?

The National Sample Survey Office(NSSO) has released the findings of the Multiple Indicator Survey(MIS).

What are the key findings of the survey?

Distance to water: Over a third of households in India had their principal source of drinking outside their premises. 

– In rural India, fetching water is a task almost exclusively performed by women. The greater the distance to the primary source of water, the more they will be exposed to heat stress on a hot day. 

– In seven States more than 50% of households reported that their drinking water source was located outside the premise with Odisha having the Largest share (66.9%) of such households followed by Jharkhand (63.8%) 

Unclean fuel: Over 33% of households in India used firewood, chips and crop —-residue as the primary source of fuel for cooking. 

– Many southern States reported the lowest share of such households, while many eastern and central States reported the highest share. 

– Even as fuel prices increased, the government withdrew support for LPG subsidies, likely forcing more households to revert to biomass-fuelled stoves called chuthas, which expose women who cook to soot and other harmful particulate matter.

Persons in debt In India: Over 15,000 persons per lakh were indebted to some institutional /non-institutional agency as of 2020-21. 

– Southern States stood out when it came to indebtedness with Andhra Pradesh having the highest number of indebted persons per lakh (46,330), followed by Telangana (39,358), Kerala (31,510) and Tamil Nadu (31,085). 

– Northeastern States such as Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland had the lowest number of persons indebted per lakh.

Piped water: Just over 35% of persons in India had access to piped water in their dwellings. 

– Among States, access to piped water inside dwelling/yard/plot ranged from over 90% in Goa to close to 6% in Assam. 

– In as many as 12 States less than 30% of persons had access to piped water and most of them were in the eastern and northeastern regions. 

In search of jobs: For about 13.7% of the persons who were willing to move out from their present place of residence in India, the main reason was the “search for employment”. 

– Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Nagaland and Bihar had the highest share of persons who were willing to move out in search of employment. 

– Nine States including Maharashtra, West Bengal, Kerala and Gujarat had less than 10% of persons willing to move out to search for employment.