New Delhi (NVI): In a government survey whose report may cheer up water crusaders, it has been found that about 87.6% of the households in rural and about 90.9% in urban areas in India have sufficient drinking water throughout the year from the principal source, which is hand pump in villages and piped water in cities.
While 48.6% of the households in the rural and about 57.5% in urban areas of India have exclusive access to principal source of drinking water, about 42.9% of the households in rural areas used hand pump as the principal source of drinking water and about 40.9% of those in urban areas used piped water for drinking.
These are part of the findings of a survey on ‘Drinking Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Housing Condition’ conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation as a part of 76th round of National Sample Survey (NSS).
The survey has revealed that about 58.2% of the households in the rural and about 80.7% in the urban areas had drinking water facilities within the household premises.
About 94.5% of the households in the rural and about 97.4% in the urban areas used ‘improved source of drinking water’ viz. bottled water, piped water into dwelling, piped water to yard/plot, tube well, hand pump, protected well, public tanker truck, protected spring and rainwater collection.
About 51.4% of the households in the rural and about 72.0% in the urban areas used improved source of drinking water, sufficiently available throughout the year located in the premises.
The latest survey was spread across the country and for the central sample, data were collected from 1,06,838 households (63,736 in rural areas and 43,102 in urban areas) from 5,378 sample villages in rural areas and 3,614 sample UFS blocks in urban areas.
The report on “Drinking Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Housing Condition” and unit level data are both available on www.mospi.gov.in.
