[Kitchen
facilities are present in 61 percent of households, but 53 percent have no
toilet facilities, down from 63 percent in 2001. Just over half of all
households, or 51 percent, are connected to some sort of drainage facilities.
Bathing facilities are present in 58 percent of homes, up from 21 percent in
2001.]
 |
Sucheta Das/Reuters
A woman makes a call using a W.L.L. (Wireless Local Loop) mobile phone,
in Madhabpur village, 62 miles south of Kolkata, West Bengal,
in this Aug. 3, 2003 file photo.
|
India’s households have, overall, become more comfortable in the past 10 years, but hundreds
of millions of people still lack basics like electricity, toilets and a
convenient water source, according the Housing Census that was released Tuesday by Home
Secretary R. K. Singh. The survey looks about 330 million households in India.
A few
highlights:
Housing: More than 91 million households live in one room homes,
and 179 million homes are two rooms or less.
Electricity: Nearly 70 percent of the households use electricity, the
census shows, an improvement of 11 percentage points from 2001. The rural-urban
gap for homes with electricity has dropped from 44 percent in 2001 to 37
percent. More than 30 percent of households still use kerosene for light.
For cooking,
67 percent of households use firewood, crop residue or cow dung cakes. Only 29
percent of households use cooking gas, biogas or electricity as cooking fuel.
Water: Only 43.5 percent of houses have tap water. More than
one-third, roughly 36 percent, have to fetch water from source a located within
500 meters (about a third of a mile) from their home in rural areas and 100
meters in urban areas. Nearly 20 percent have to walk farther than that to get
water.
Communication: A telephone, whether a land line or mobile, is used by 63
percent of total households – 82 percent in urban areas and 54 percent in rural
areas, an increase of 54 percentage points from 2001. A mobile phone is owned
by 59 percent of households.
There has been
a huge jump in television ownership – up from 15.6 percent to 43 percent in
since 2001.
A computer or
laptop is owned by 20 percent of the households in urban India and just 5
percent in rural areas. Only 3 percent of overall households have an internet
connection.
Sanitation: Kitchen facilities are present in 61 percent of
households, but 53 percent have no toilet facilities, down from 63 percent in
2001. Just over half of all households, or 51 percent, are connected to some
sort of drainage facilities. Bathing facilities are present in 58 percent of
homes, up from 21 percent in 2001.
Transportation: Just 5 percent of Indian households have a four-wheeled
vehicle, or car or truck. More than one-fifth, or 21 percent, have motorcycles
or scooters and 41 percent rely on bicycles.
Banking: The number of households using banking facilities has
jumped substantially, from 27 percent in 2001 to 59 percent in this census.
[Steel mogul Lakshmi
Mittal suffered the biggest loss of all the world’s billionaires in the list,
as his fortune dropped by $10.4 billion, to $20.7 billion. Mr. Mittal took the
second spot among Indians, finishing 21st on the ranking, the first time since
2004 that he did make it to the world’s top ten. According to Forbes the drop was caused by a fall in the shares
of ArcelorMittal, thanks to surging costs and sluggish demand in
Europe.]
By Neha Thirani
 |
| Steel mogul Lakshmi Mittal |
There are 48 Indians
in the Forbes list,
with a net worth of $ 194.6 billion. That compares to the previous year, when
the Forbes list
featured 55 billionaires from India with a net worth of $246.5
billion. Mukesh Ambani continues to be India’s wealthiest individual, despite
losing $4.7 billion in the past year, coming in 19th in the global ranking with
a net worth of $22.3 billion. His brother Anil Ambani, on the other hand, is
listed in the 118th position, with a net worth of $7.8 billion, down a billion
dollars from 2011. In 1994, the Ambani family
were included in the Forbes list for the first time.
Azim Premji, the
66-year-old Wipro chairman, is ranked 41st, making him the third-richest Indian
on the Forbes list. Mr. Premji has a net worth of $15.9 billion.
Indians were not the
only ones whose net worth sank in the 2012 Forbes rankings; more than a third
of all the billionaires internationally experienced a drop in their net worth.
Steel mogul Lakshmi
Mittal suffered the biggest loss of all the world’s billionaires in the list,
as his fortune dropped by $10.4 billion, to $20.7 billion. Mr. Mittal took the
second spot among Indians, finishing 21st on the ranking, the first time since
2004 that he did make it to the world’s top ten. According to Forbes the drop was caused by a fall in the shares
of ArcelorMittal, thanks to surging costs and sluggish demand in
Europe.
Brothers Shashi and
Ravi Ruia of the Essar Group sustained the second largest loss of the year,
losing $8.8 billion according to Forbes. They were placed 133 on the rankings,
with a net worth of $7 billion.
Other Indians who made
it to the rankings include Kumar Birla, chairman of the Aditya Birla Group
(116th), chairman of Sun Pharmaceuticals Dilip Shanghvi (124), Bharti
Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal and family (113th) and DLF’s Kushal Pal Singh
(153rd).
The list featured only
two women billionaires from India; Savitri Jindal of the Jindal group, who was
ranked 80th and Indu Jain of the Bennet Coleman group, ranked 578th.
When Forbes began to
put together its list of the
world’s billionaires in 1987, there were 140 names on the list,
44 of which were from the United States.
This year, the list is
up to a record 1,226 with the U.S. still leading the list with 425 billionaires.
The 2012 list has billionaires from 58 countries, including new addition
Morocco. The total net worth of the billionaires listed by Forbes is $4.6
trillion, an increase of $100 billion from 2011. Mexico’s Carlos Slim retains
his position at the top of the rankings with a fortune estimated at $69
billion. Brazilian oil
magnate Eike Batista, currently placed at No. 7, vows to one day
overtake him.
In the 2011 Forbes
list, the BRIC nations
were home to 25 percent of the world’s billionaires. In this year’s
list, India, China and Russia collectively have 30 fewer billionaires, with
Brazil being the only nation to see an increase in its numbers. While India
lost seven billionaires in comparison to 2011, Brazil saw an
increase of six new billionaires, bringing the countries tally to
36.
Among the newly ranked
billionaires in Brazil is Nevaldo Rocha, who built his fortune in the apparel
industry with his company Guararapes Confeccoes. Jose Isaac Peres joins the
list because of a rise in the value of his stake in the shopping mall developer
Multiplan while Francisco Dias Branco controls cookie and pasta maker M. Dias
Branco and owns $1 billion worth of real estate.
One of factors that
added billionaires from Brazil to the list is increased transparency in the
country. Brazil has recently enacted stricter disclosure regulations for the
ownership of publicly traded companies. Officials at Forbes say that there is a good chance that
they will unearth more billionaires in Brazil in the coming
years.
