CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has done well on many fronts including sanitation and communication over a period of 10 years, the Census 2011 facts reveal.
The number of households compared to the 2001 enumeration has increased from 1.42 crore to around 1.85 crore, with a steep rise in the number of households possessing telephone connection, S Gopalakrishnan, Director of Census Operations, Tamil Nadu, said.
According to the details of Census 2011 Data on Houses, Household and Amenities and Assets, the state has outdone the national average in terms of households with latrine available within the premises with as many as 48.3 per cent of the households having the facility, while it was 46.9 for the country.
The number of households having no latrine declined from 64 percent in 2001 to 52 percent in 2011 and Chennai and Kanyakumari districts turned out to be chart-toppers with more than 95 percent and 87 percent having the facility within the premises while Dharmapuri (19.0) and Ariyalur (18.1) had little to boast about.
Number of households dependent on tap water rose from 62.5 per cent to 79.8 per cent "showing the availability of treated water".
Gopalakrishnan said even as the number of households reliant on well-water and other sources including borehole and handpump showed significant decline.
Seven per cent still fetched drinking water from a source located more than 500 metre away in rural areas or 100 metres in urban area, and this figure was 12 percent in 2001, he noted.
On the communication front, 75 per cent households had telephone/mobile phone facility with the latter making a penetration into 69 percent households.
TV sets managed to capture the attention of more households, registering a near 50 percent jump. As many as 87 percentage of TN households possessed TV sets as against the 39.5 percent ten years back even as the good-old radio found fewer takers.
Only 6.3 per cent of the households did not possess even one of the aforesaid gadgets, once again showing a significant decline from 42.3 percent in 2001.
Percentage of electrified households is 93.4 as against 78.2, and those having two-wheelers (32.3) also rose. In Chennai, 99.1 per cent of the households possessed electricity connection followed by Thiruvallur.