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Sudhanshu Ranade

Chennai , June 17

AS many as 61 million households in India, of the total of 192 million, owned television sets in 2001, according to data posted on the Web site of the Registrar General of Census Operations.

Though the number of TV sets owned by rural and urban houses do not differ very much (26 million rural, 35 million urban), this was only because rural households outnumber urban ones by a ratio of almost 2.6 to 1.

As a result, despite the large number of TV sets owned by rural households, the percentage of rural households owning these sets was only 18.9, compared with 64.3 for urban households.

The largest number of households replying positively to the question of ownership of radios/transistors, television sets, telephones, bicycles, scooters/motorcycles/mopeds, cars/jeeps/vans and `none of the specified assets', was the approximately 84 million which said that they owned bicycles. The number of households owning bicycles in rural and urban areas was 59 million and 25 million, respectively. Radios and transistors came next; 67 million households (43 million rural, 24 million urban) reported owning one or both. The next largest group was the 66 million households (56 million rural, 10 million urban) which reported that they owned `none of the specified assets).

Eighteen million households (approximately 5 million in rural areas, the remainder urban) reported ownership of telephones. These numbers, of course, have experienced an enormous change over the last three years.

There have been a number of figures about these items put out in the recent past by different reports. A careful review of the findings of such studies is sure to excite a great deal of interest. Meanwhile, going back to the findings of the 2001 census, about 23 million households (9 million of them living in rural areas) reported ownership of scooters/motorcycles/mopeds.

As is perhaps only to be expected, the one and only `asset', which was owned by a greater portion of rural rather than urban households was `none of the specified assets', for which, in absolute terms, the ratio was about 5.6:1.

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