Places of worship outnumber educational institutions by two to one in Punjab and hospitals and dispensaries by more than four to one, census data released on Saturday has revealed.
The data on houses, household amenities and assets released by Director, Census Operations, Seema Jain, on Saturday, shows the State's 2.77-crore population is served by 63,244 places of worship — but only 31,228 schools and colleges, both private and public.. Similarly, the number of hospitals and dispensaries is just 14,494, of which a mere 6,253 are in rural areas. Most of Punjab's places of worship, 49,931, are located in its 12,581 villages.
Punjab's population, which is 2.28 per cent of the national figures, is settled in about 78.47 lakh households, and has 76.7 per cent literacy rate against 64.8 per cent of the national average.
In spite of Punjab's reputation for affluence, Census 2011 figures have revealed that the condition of only 49.9 per cent houses is “good,” 43.5 per cent is “liveable” and 6.7 per cent dilapidated. Of them, 88.9 per cent households are on self-owned premises, while just 8.8 per cent are on rented premises. Toilets and bathing facilities are available within premises to 79.3 and 89 per cent of the households respectively.
Overall, 96.6 per cent of the households have electricity as the main source of lighting, a 4.7 points improvement over the last decade. Second only to the Union Territory of Chandigarh, Punjab's 85.9 per cent households have drinking water facility within the premises.
The percentage of households with television sets increased from 67.7 to 82.6 during the decade, while 12.8 per cent of them have a computer. With the inclusion of mobile phones, the percentage of households that are connected increased from 18.9 per cent in 2001 to 82.1 in 2011. The number of households having only landlines has reduced from 18.9 per cent to 6.4 per cent.
Punjab recorded a significant growth in households possessing two-wheeler and four-wheeler vehicles, respectively, but showed about 5 percent decrease in number of bicycles. The number of households without any assets or amenities reduced from 11.4 per cent in 2001 to 4.41 in 2011.
