ABSTRACT

Although India is way towards to meet its Millennium Development Goal for providing access to safe drinking  water and sanitation, thus remains a worrying discrepancy in access between urban and rural areas. In 2006, 96% of the urban population versus 86% of the rural population obtained their drinking water from an improved water source. Poverty is “pronounced deprivation in well-being.” The wellbeing primarily linked to commodities, so the poor are those who do not have enough income or consumption to keep them above some adequate minimum threshold level. Poor household is defined as the position where household is deprived of minimum requirement of standard of living. Poverty is a major rural phenomenon, as majority of poor live in rural areas. Rural peoples regularly face geographically disadvantage, being in rural area where the access to basic amenities is inadequate. Majority of poor households found deprived in rural areas as urban areas due to lack of adequate resources. Access to basic amenities found very low due to lacking of government policies, infrastructure and awareness of ongoing programs and campaign on rural development activity. The objective is based on availability of basic amenities among poor households and to find the coverage of basic amenities among characteristics of households in Himachal Pradesh. The present study is based on data collected on the basis of basic household amenities such as decent house, sanitation, drinking water, cooking fuel, and drainage in rural poor houses in Himachal Pradesh and data extracted from the study conducted by NSSO, Government of India. Two-stages sampling were for data collection in all states of India. First stage sampling includes the selection of census village in the rural areas and urban frame survey block in the urban sector. Second stage include household was selected by using random sampling. Survey covered 65,932 households and 333,104 persons were interviewed all over 36 states of India. Study covered 896 households in Himachal Pradesh including 757 non-poor households and 159 poor households. The study result revealed that Average Household consumer expenditure and Average Monthly Household consumer expenditure found Rs. 5160 and Rs. 862 and also average family size found 6 in poor households in Himachal Pradesh. septic tank/ flush system (61.9%), open kutcha (37.4%), Tap(88.5%) and firewood and chips (77.0%) was the main source of Latrine, Drainage system, drinking source and cooking fuel in poor households in Himachal Pradesh. Other house type and Sikhism, Non- schedule cast and family size with one & two member family shows more availability of latrine. Casual labour in non-agriculture house (93.5%),Sikhism (100%) SC(81%) and more than three member family (79.5%) have Firewood and chips where as Self-employed in non-agriculture (48.1%), other categories of religion (80%) and non SC(20.3%) and family with one member (75%) have LPG as sources of cooking in poor houses