Indian Citizens’ Basic Needs: A Progress Report

Abstract

Over the years there has been a shift in the development discourse. Progress in development is no more defined on the basis of overall income growth of the economy, but rather on the quantum reduction in the share of population deprived of ‘basic needs’. The present report makes an attempt to analyse the progress of India with regard to four important essential needs during 2001-2018. These are access to electricity, tap water, toilet facility and LPG. The report analyses the group disparity in all these amenities across states, between rural and urban areas and more importantly among twenty heterogeneous district clusters. It needs to be kept in mind that the data pertaining to 2001 and 2011 are from the Census of India (2001 and 2011) and the data pertaining to 2014 and 2016 are from ICE 360° pan India household surveys. The data pertaining to 2018 are estimated for rural and urban areas separately for each district development cluster and each state using data from Census 2011 and ICE 360° surveys.

Keywords: Citizens Basic Needs, Electricity, Tap Water, LPG, Toilet, Households, Indian Household Survey, ICE 360 Survey, PRICE