Half of urban Karnataka lives in rented apartments

Bangalore: Close to half the households in urban areas in the state live in rented houses, revealed the latest census data released by Karnataka’s directorate of census operations. Of the total 53.15 lakh households in the urban areas, 27.13 lakh people live in rented accommodation. Also, of these total households, 15 per cent still do not have latrine within the premises and 12 per cent do not have drainage while 36 per cent have open drainage.

Criticising the government for lack of planning Dr R S Deshpande, Director Institute for Social and Economic Change, said that while urbanisation is an ongoing process care should have been taken to ensure a parallel development, which the government failed to achieve. “Both, the government and the private investors should be blamed as they have failed to meet the urban demands,” he said.

The census report also revealed that the percentage of urban population has risen from 24.31 per cent in 1971 to 38.57 per cent in 2011. It is also noted that Bangalore accounts for 15.69 per cent of the state’s population and it has doubled in the last decade. The number of people living per square kilometre in Bangalore has increased to 4,378 in 2011 from 2,985 in 2001.

Of the total 53.15 lakh households in the urban areas, 27.13 lakh people live in rented accommodation.

Of the 6.11 crore population in Karnataka, 95.88 lakh live in Bangalore, as against 45.63 lakh in 2001. Interestingly, one in every three person living in urban area, is in Bangalore. Bangalore city also holds the record for having the least gender ratio in the state - 908 women for every 1,000 men while the gender ratio in Karnataka in 2011 is 968 women for every 1,000 men.

“We have been terribly bad in this factor compared to other cities. One reason could be that there are more number of sex determination clinics. The other reason could be the migration aspect where in more number of males are moving into the city,” Deshpande added.

The literacy rate of the state has increased to 75.6 per cent in 2011, ranking it ninth in India, from 66.6 per cent in 2001. However, the female illiteracy exceeds the female literacy in Raichur and Yadgir districts and eight districts have female literacy rate of less than eight per cent.

In Karnataka, only 41 per cent of the households are using tap water from treated sources and 18 per cent fetch drinking water from a source located more than 500 meter away in rural areas or 100 meter in urban areas.

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