Drinking Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Housing condition in India, NSS 76th round

News:The National Statistical Office (NSO),Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has conducted a survey on Drinking Water, Sanitation,Hygiene and Housing Condition as a part of 76th round of National Sample Survey(NSS).

Facts:

About the survey:

• The main objective of the survey was to collect information on facilities of drinking water, sanitation along with housing facilities available to the households and the micro environment surrounding the houses.

Key takeaways from the survey:

Bathroom and sanitation facility:

• The Swachh Bharat Mission had declared India open defecation free on October 2,2019. 
• However,according to the survey only 71% of rural households had access to toilets at a time when the Centre was claiming at 95%.
• The 71% access to toilets was still a significant improvement over the situation during the last survey period in 2012 when only 40% of rural households had access to toilets.
• On toilet usage,the survey has said that 95% of people with access to toilets in rural India used them regularly indicating that the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan’s efforts in changing behaviour.
• Further,the survey has indicated that the next big challenge may lie in the disposal of waste as more than 50% of rural Indian households with toilets had septic tanks while another 21% used single pits both of which need to be cleaned and produce faecal sludge that must be disposed of safely.

Drinking water facility:

• The major source of drinking water was hand pump for the households in the rural areas and piped water into dwelling in the urban areas.
• About 42.9% of the households in the rural areas used hand pump as the principal source of drinking water.
• About 40.9% of the households in the urban areas used piped water into dwelling as the principal source of drinking water.

Micro environment:

• Among the households living in houses, about 93.9% of the households in the rural and about 99.1% in the urban areas had electricity for domestic use.
• Among the households living in houses, about 48.3% of the households in the rural and about 86.6% in the urban areas used LPG as a fuel for cooking.

Additional information:

About NSO:

• The National Statistical Office(NSO) was established in 1950 under Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI), Government of India.
• NSO is headed by a Director General.It has been conducting nation-wide large scale sample surveys, employing scientific sampling methods to collect data on diverse economic aspects.
• Recently,Government had proposed the merger of the National Sample Survey Office(NSSO) and Central Statistics Office (CSO) under National Statistical Office(NSO).
• The objective of the merger is to streamline and strengthen the present nodal functions of the ministry and to bring in more synergy by integrating its administrative functions within the ministry.