Gist of Bare Necessities Index | Gist of Rajya Sabha TV / RSTV (now Sansad TV) - UPSC PDF Download

The Big Picture: Bare Necessities Index

Context

Bare Necessities Index has been mentioned in the recently launched Economic Survey for 2020-21.

Background

• Inequalities in access to bare necessities like drinking water, sanitation, hygiene and housing conditions continue to exist between urban and rural India despite “widespread” improvements in each of these aspects.
• The BNI builds on the idea of Thalinomics in the Economic Survey for 2019-20, through which it had sought to examine the access to food in the country.

Summary of the Debate

About Bare Necessities Index (BNI)

• The BNI summarises 26 indicators on five dimensions - water, sanitation, housing, micro-environment, and other facilities and has been created for all states for 2012 and 2018 using NSO data. 
• The index classifies areas on three levels of access- high, medium, low to bare necessities. 
• The Survey has underlined the need to focus on reducing variations in the access to bare necessities across states, between rural and urban areas, and between income groups. 
• The “bare necessities” of housing, water, sanitation, electricity and clean cooking fuel are jointly consumed by all the members of a household. 
  • They touch the life of every member in the household. 
  • These are durable assets and deliver services to the household over long periods of time. 
• Access to clean drinking water, safe sanitation and clean cooking fuel also have direct linkages with health of the members in the household. 
  • Access to these saves time for a household, which they can utilise in productive activities such as education and learning.

Key Findings

• Compared to 2012, access to “the bare necessities” has improved across all States in the country in 2018. 
• Access to bare necessities is the highest in the States such as Kerala, Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat while it is the lowest in Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Tripura. 
• The improvements are widespread as they span each of the five dimensions viz., access to water, housing, sanitation, micro-environment and other facilities. 
  • Inter-State disparities in the access to “the bare necessities” have declined in 2018 when compared to 2012 across rural and urban areas. 
  • This is because the States where the level of access to “the bare necessities” was low in 2012 have gained relatively more between 2012 and 2018. 
• Access to “the bare necessities” has improved disproportionately more for the poorest households when compared to the richest households across rural and urban areas. 
• BNI in 2012 and 2018 with infant mortality and under-5 mortality rate in 2015-16 and 2019-20 respectively and find that the improved access to “the bare necessities” has led to improvements in health indicators. 
• Improved access to “the bare necessities” correlates with future improvements in education indicators. The schemes, inter alia, Jal Jeevan mission, SBM-G, PMAY-G, may design appropriate strategy to reduce these gaps. 

Initiatives to Improve Access to The Bare Necessities

• Swachh Bharat Mission-Rural and Urban: Its object was to attain Open Defecation Free (ODF) India by 2nd October, 2019 by providing access to toilet facilities to all rural households in the country.
• Objective of SBM-Urban is to achieve 100 per cent Open Defecation Free (ODF) status and 100 per cent scientific processing of the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) being generated in the country.
• Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (PMAY): PMAY intends to provide housing for all in urban and rural areas by 2022.
• Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM): Goal of JJM is to provide functional tap water connection (FTWC) every rural household by 2024 and get assured supply of potable piped water at a service level of 55 litres per capita per day regularly on long-term basis by ensuring functionality of the tap water connections.
• Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana – Saubhagya: It was launched to achieve universal household electrification by providing electricity connections to all willing un-electrified households in rural areas and all willing poor households in urban areas in the country, by March, 2019.
• Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY): It was launched to provide clean cooking fuel to poor households with a target to provide 8 crore deposit free LPG connection. 

Conclusion