Context: 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 Economic Survey for 2020-21 has shown, using a newly constructed “Bare Necessities Index” (BNI). 

Reason behind its Use

• The index attempts to carry forward the ‘Thalinomics’ exercise in the last Economic Survey, which calculated the average Indian’s access to a plate of food. The survey also correlated the BNI to child mortality and school enrolment data to show the link to health and education outcomes.
• Access to household toilets, piped water, and a reduction in air pollution due to the use of clean cooking fuel have an outsize impact on child health. Studies also showed that girls were more likely to go to school if they had access to toilets, and do not need to spend time hauling water for their families every day.

Bare Necessities Index(BNI): This index is a means of assessing equity in economic development among states and regions in India. It uses the basic needs approach.

• Indicators: This index uses 26 indicators on five dimensions of basic necessities— water, sanitation, housing, micro-environment, and other facilities.
• Data Collection: The index has been created for all states based on data collected by the National Statistical Office(NSO) in 2012 and 2018.
• Range: The index classifies areas on three levels of access — high, medium, low — to bare necessities. The index has a range of 0 to 1 where 1 represents the best access to the basic necessities.

Key Findings

Richer vs Poorer States: The Poorer States have reduced the gap with rich States in providing access to the basics of daily life — housing, water, power, sanitation, cooking gas.

• Inter-State disparity in access to the basic necessities has declined in 2018, when compared to 2012.
• In 2012, only Delhi and Goa had a BNI score of over 0.7 for both urban and rural households. In 2018, nine states and Union Territories — Kerala, Goa, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, New Delhi, Sikkim, and Mizoram — logged a score of more than 0.7.

Performance of States: States such as Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, and Gujarat top the index.  While eastern Indian States of Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Tripura have occupied the lowest positions.

• States which showed significant improvement include Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.

Richer vs Poorer Households: The access to basic necessities has improved significantly for the poorest households when compared to the richest households.

• The gap between Rural and Urban India: There is still a gap between urban and rural India as well as among income groups in access to basic necessities.

Suggestions

• There should be effective targeting of the government schemes for the poorer population in both urban or rural areas.
• As civic amenities in urban areas are also provided by local self government, there must be effective convergence in scheme implementation at the Centre-state and local levels, the Survey said.

“For this purpose, a BNI based on large annual household survey data can be constructed using suitable indicators and methodology at district level for all/targeted districts to assess the progress on access to bare necessities

Road Ahead

• “Bare Necessities Index” (BNI) is a good way to ensure equal access to bare necessities across sectors across states and across the country. As far as what to expect from the budget is concerned it looks like the allocation will be increased in the social sector schemes say like healthcare seems like it will get its due finally but we need to have a special focus or special attention on public health multiplicity of schemes has to be addressed at some point of time because there are over 250 schemes which are very-2 similar so this needs to be integrated, we need to see better synergy between the Centre and States and also the schemes need to be futuristic keeping in mind that the idea of bare necessities has changed over the years and will change for the next generation as well.