ELECTRICITY

TAP WATER

TOILETS

COOKING GAS

Source: Indian Citizens’ Basic Needs report by People Research on India’s Consumer Economy

The recent UN-led Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) showed that 271 million Indians moved out of poverty between 2005-06 and 2015-16, with the country’s poverty rate falling from 55% to 28%. But what does that mean for the actual living conditions of Indians? A report submitted by PRICE to the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister indicates promising progress in how the country has addressed the very basic needs of electricity, tap water toilets and cooking gas for its people, with strong annual growth in the rate at which the coverage has been expanding. Here's a snapshot ...Nearly 89% (26.3 crore) of the country’s households have access to electricity. But the rural-urban divide remains, with about 1 out of 6 village households still without electricity compared to 99% coverage for urban households. Power supply is an issue, especially in summer. During peak summer, power availability is restricted to about 18.1 hours and in non-summer months it is slightly more at 19.2 hours. The least developed rural district gets just 14.7 hours of electricity during peak summer compared to 17.9 hours for its urban counterpart.In 2011, only 3 states had more than 70% households with access to tap water. By 2018, their number had increased to 15. Over last 4 years, tap water connections increased by 26 percentage points against 12 percentage points during 2011-2014. Growth of households with tap water increased at a much faster pace in rural India (28%) as compared to urban India (22%) during 2014-2018. But overall, only 19.3 crore households have tap water. Rural clusters are the most deprived when it comes to tap water with only 11%-21% households with access to tap water whereas in the least developed urban clusters, more than 60% households have water connections.38% of households have no toilets while 27% have toilets without running water. Only 35% households have both. There was a 14 percentage point increase in households with a toilet between 2014 and 2018 as compared to 7 percentage points increase between 2011 and 2014. Toilet coverage grew by 19% between 2014 and 2018 in rural as compared to 2% in urban areas. The average annual increase in rural areas has been much higher, at 4.6%, than that in urban India (0.9%).Overall, number of households with LPG connections has gone from 3.5 crore in 2001 to 19.8 crore in 2018, or 67% households. There was a 27% percentage point increase in LPG coverage between 2014-2018 as against a 12% percentage point growth between 2011-2014. While 90% of urban households now have cooking gas, only 59% of the rural ones enjoy the facility. But it is the latter segment that has seen the sharpest growth