Population below 15 years of age falls, but standard of living rises: NFHS Survey

Sikkim tops among 11 surveyed states with a population fall to 23.1%, Uttarakhand shows significant improvement in standard of living

A part of India’s much-touted demographic dividend — population below the age of 15 — has decreased in the last 10 years. However, our standard of living — households with clean water, electricity etc — has shown a rise during the same period, data from the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), which covered 11 states, shows. 

Sikkim topped the list of states showing decrease of population aged below 15 years — to 23.1% in 2015-16 from 30.7% in 2005-06. Madhya Pradesh followed it as the population fell to 7% in the same period.

Meanwhile, Uttarakhand was the only state, which showed significant improvement in all five parameters of living standards — households with improved sanitation facility, clean cooking fuel source, electricity connection, clean drinking water source and using iodised salt. It increased the household numbers by 20%, 15%, 17.5%, 5.5% and 24.3%, respectively.

The 11 states surveyed in first phase — which were also covered in the last NHFS of 2005-06 - are Goa, Meghalaya, Uttarakhand, Tripura ,Tamil Nadu, Sikkim, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana, Bihar and West Bengal. The other two states which were covered this time were Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

In the last 10 years, Tamil Nadu showed a massive 42% increase in households using clean fuel — electricity, LPG/natural gas or biogas — for cooking. Moreover, 20 % more households in the state now have improved sanitation facilities.

Haryana was number one in increasing the number of households with improved sanitation facilities — from 40% in 2005-06 to 79.2% in 2015-16. Madhya Pradesh, which had the lowest number of households using iodised salt in 2005-06 among these 11 states, showed an enormous increase of 34.4%. Currently, according to the survey, only 6.8% of households in Madhya Pradesh are not using iodised salts.

West Bengal, which had only 52.5% electrified homes ten years ago, showed a tremendous 41.2% growth in the electrification process. As per the survey, only 6.3 % of West Bengal's homes are not electrified in 2015-16. Similarly, Bihar increased its number of households using electricity by 30.9% in last ten years.

Households using improved sanitation facility	Households using clean fuel for cooking	Households with electricity connections	Households with an improved drinking water source	Households using iodised salt
1. Haryana (39.2%)	1. Tamil Nadu (42%)	1. West Bengal (41.2%)	1. Sikkim (20%)	1. Madhya Pradesh (34.4%)
2. Sikkim (28%)	2. Karnataka (25%)	2. Bihar (30.9%)	2. Haryana (16.4%)	2. Uttarakhand (24.3%)
3. Karnataka (25%)	3. Goa  (23%)	3. Tripura (23.9%)	3. Madhya Pradesh (10.5%)	3. Haryana (21%)