Punjab: Needs to push housing sector growth, only 49.9 % houses in good condition

Tuesday, April 3, 2012 - 09:15
By Naresh Kumar Sharma
CHANDIGARH: Notwithstanding the fact that there has been significant improvement in living conditions in the state, however, there is still lot to be done in housing sector. This has been reveal in as the census report of Directorate of Census Operations of Punjab reveals that only 49.9 per cent houses are better equipped in terms of qualitative standard of living.

The report says that there are total 71, 39,763 houses in the state out of which 6, 60.110 are vacant. Only 49.9 per cent houses are in good condition, 43.5 are fit for living and 6.6 per cent are in dilapidated state.

The state (Punjab) also needs to pull up its socks to improve the quality of drinking water as over 49 per cent of families in the state get drinking water from untreated sources like wells, tube wells, hand-pumps and ponds.

About 13 per cent, 16 per cent and 15 per cent of families living in the areas of three cancer affected districts like Bathinda, Mansa and Muktsar respectively are depending on drinking water from untreated tap water. At least 48 per cent families of Gurdaspur are drinking water from hand-pumps and 41 per cent of families in Fatehgarh Sahib are getting water directly from tube wells.

The increasing toxicity of uranium in drinking water from underground sources has assumed alarming proportions as per various survey reports which has been resulting in more incidences of cancer cases.

In terms of electricity connectivity, state has made good progress as 96.6 per cent of the households having supply of electricity being the major source of lighting registering an increase of 4.7 points over that of 91.9 per cent in 2001.

The percentage of households having television has also shown an increase from 67.7 per cent to 82.6 per cent during this decade. Besides this, a total of 12.8 per cent of households have computers.

The state has made massive jump in regard to mobile phones as the percentage of households having telephone, mobile has increased from 18.9 per cent in 2001 to 82.1 per cent in 2011.

Another good indicator of report has been significant increase in the households having scooter, motorcycle, moped, car, jeep, van and so on in the past 10 years as 47.4 per cent of households in Punjab have scooter, motorcycle or other two-wheelers which is more than the corresponding figure 31.6 per cent in 2001, as per the 2011 report. In fact Punjab is ranked second in the country pertaining to number of two wheelers owned and fourth in owning four wheelers.The report says that 13.1 per cent of families owned four wheelers in compared to 5.8 per cent in 2001.

Seema jain, Joint Secretary and Director Census, Punjab said that the house listing data for Census 2011 is comprehensive data about prevailing living conditions of the households in regard to their housing conditions, amenities available to them and the specified assets owned by them. She said that this data would be very useful for the state government to frame its policies and as well as for private sector also.

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