Ninety four per cent of the Indian household having a member of 45 years and above have access to safe drinking water and 92 per cent to electricity, according to the recently published Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI).
The LASI is a survey of the health, economic, and social determinants and consequences of population ageing in the country.
Lakshadweep has access to good drinking water while Manipur has the lowest percentage of 57.
The report said that about 48 per cent of the household having a person of 45 years and above have various sources of drinking water in their dwelling. It said that a third of the household do not have water source in their plot. Meanwhile, 21 per cent have the source in their plot.
With respect to electricity, 98 per cent of the urban households have it while it is 89 per cent in the rural households.
On the methods of safe drinking water, the report said that 34 per cent of the households had some method to make water safer. When 43 percent used cloth to filter the water, 20 percent use an electric purifier. The LASI said that 17 per cent boiled the water, 13 per cent used water filter, three per cent used chlorine/bleaching powder, and one per cent used alum.
Notably, the LASI study noted that 73 per cent of the household having people 45 years of age and above have sanitation facilities.
48 per cent of the households use flush toilets, 22 percent use pit latrine and three per cent use a composting/twin pit. In urban regions, majority of the families use flush/pour flush toilet.
Open defecation in rural region is high in Uttar Pradesh (63 per cent), Bihar (63 per cent) and Dadra and Nagar Haveli (56 per cent). Meanwhile Odisha and Tamil Nadu (13 percent each), and Jammu & Kashmir (10 percent) are the states that have high percentage of open defecation in urban regions.
Another finding is that 52 percent of the families use clean cooking fuel. The LASI said that 88 per cent in urban areas use Liquid Petroleum Gas for cooking and 35 per cent use the same in rural regions. In rural region, 51 percent still use wood or shrubs and about seven percent use cow dung.
