No homeless in Mizoram

Land-locked Mizoram has scored a high in housing and household amenities - the northeastern state does not have any homeless people, revealed the 2011 census for housing, household amenities and assets.

According to official figures, the state has a total of 221,077 households - 65.8% live in their own houses while 31.8% have rented accommodation. The rest live in staff quarters. The figures suggest that 2.8% live in houses marked dilapidated.

Mizoram has also set a benchmark in sanitation.  As many as 2,03,185 families of the total 2,21,077 families in the state have toilets on the premises of their houses, while 3,342 families use public toilets and 14,550 people defecate in the open.

In sharp contrast, the more accessible Meghalaya cuts a sorry figure - 34.3% of its 5,38,299 households do defecation out in the open.

The problem for another northeastern state, Manipur, has been the lack of access to fuel for cooking. According to the latest census, 65% of the state’s 6.09 lakh people are dependent on firewood. However, amazingly, 57% of them possess cell phones.
At total of 65.7% of the households in Manipur are firewood users.

The national average is 49%. The census data revealed that 29.7% of the people in the state use cooking gas while 0.2% households use kerosene for cooking.

Ukhrul district has the most firewood users (93.1%) followed by Tamenglong district with 92.9%.