TV
Bhubaneswar: When the ruling BJD and opposition BJP are engaged in a political tug-of-war aka the 2001 bollywood hit Yeh mera Ghar (Biju Pucca Ghar Yojana), Yeh tera Ghar (PM AWAS Yojana), the reality is Odisha has to live with the dubious numero one rank in the country for having the highest proportion of people living in poorly ventilated houses and 2nd in households dwelling in katcha houses.
Such a reality check on the poor housing conditions in Odisha was to the fore, when the Union government released the NSSO (National Sample Survey Organisation) report titled Drinking Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Housing Conditions in India on Saturday.
As per the report, a whopping 20 lakh rural households live in houses that are structurally bad in condition and another 2.13 lakh households in urban areas live in houses that are structurally poor in condition.
Over all, a massive 23.4 per cent households in Odisha dwell in structurally poor conditioned houses, which is the highest in the country.
However, when it comes to the state of ventilation in houses, Odisha again topped the country with a massive 29.55 lakh households in rural areas dwelling in poorly ventilated houses. The big number in urban areas stood at 3.4 lakh or around 18 per cent of total households, which is 2nd highest in country after Daman & Diu.
Moreover, with a whopping 14.76 lakh households living in katcha houses in Odisha, the State has been ranked the dubious 2nd in the country.
The rural-urban divide shows: Nearly 14.3 lakh households in rural Odisha live in katcha houses, whereas the number in urban area is estimated at mere 52,018.
The worth mentioning fact here is in households dwelling in katcha houses, Odisha is second to only Arunachal Pradesh (a border north-east state).
Not only non-airy or katcha type or structurally poor, the houses in Odisha are also seriously constrained by the space factor.
The report shows rural Odisha has mere 1.62 living rooms (means not even 2 living rooms), whereas for urban Odisha the number is marginally better at 1.78. Odisha is, thus, 3rd in the country with such dismal number of living rooms after Andhra Pradesh and Chandigarh.
Significantly, when such is the pitiable condition of state of houses, and when on an average each household in Odisha has a married couple, then it's no surprise that a high of around 40 per cent married couples in the State could ill afford to have a separate room. And Odisha is fourth in the country after Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and UP.
Above all, when around 84 per cent of rural households in Odisha have their own houses, the number in urban areas stood at mere 51 per cent.
