Bare necessities: Economic Survey takes a leaf out of 'Jungle Book'

Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, and Gujarat have highest access to basic amenities

The Economic Survey constructed a Bare Necessities Index (BNI) to measure the quality of housing, toilet, drinking water and clean cooking fuel, and the progress on their delivery.

“Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities, forget about your worries and your strife, I mean the bare necessities” — quoting from Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book, the Survey said availability of bare necessities have improved across all regions of India, including urban and rural, on the BNI.

“The ‘bare necessities’ of housing, water, sanitation, electricity and clean cooking fuel are jointly consumed by all the members of a household. They, therefore, touch