GUWAHATI, Sept 8 - Only a quarter of Assam�s households use clean fuel for cooking, while only 10 per cent of them have any members covered by health insurance.
As per findings of the recent National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16), a mere 25.1 per cent of households in Assam use clean fuel, like electricity, LPG or biogas for cooking purposes.
While 76.5 per cent of households in urban areas have access to such facilities, the figure for rural Assam is as low as 15.6 per cent.
The overall situation has not changed much since the third round of NFHS in 2005-06 when 22.7 per cent of households in the State were using clean fuel for cooking.
The NFHS-4 also found that only 10.4 per cent of households in Assam have any usual member covered by a health scheme or health insurance. In urban households, the coverage is 12.6 per cent, while in rural households it is 10 per cent.
However, health scheme or health insurance coverage has increased by over four times since 2005-06 when only 2.3 per cent of them had any members covered under such schemes in Assam.
The survey found that less than half of the households in Assam were using improved sanitation facilities, like flush, to piped sewer system, flush to septic tank, flush to pit latrine, ventilated improved pit or biogas latrine, pit latrine with slab, twin pit or composting toilet, which is not shared with any other household.
While 47.7 per cent households in Assam were using such sanitation facilities in 2015-16, the figure during the previous survey conducted in 2005-06 was 30.7 per cent.
One area where there was marked improvement during the past decade was in the field of electricity. As many as 78.2 per cent households in the State have electricity, as per the findings of the latest survey, as compared to 38.1 per cent a decade ago.
Households with access to an improved drinking water source, like piped water into dwelling or plot, public tap, tubewell or borehole, protected dug well, protected spring, rainwater, community RO plant, stood at 83.8 per cent as per the survey, compared to 72.5 per cent during the third round of NFHS.
The National Family Health Survey 2015-16 is the fourth in the NFHS series and it provides information on population, health and nutrition. As in the earlier rounds, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare designated the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, as the nodal agency to conduct NFHS-4.
The main objective of each successive round of the NFHS has been to provide essential data on health and family welfare and scheme.
