Every second Delhiite is dependent on pension, returns from investments or some form of remittance for income and more people earn their livelihood through the private sector or are unemployed than working in the public sector or with the government, an official survey of over 1 crore people – half the population of the Capital according to the 2011 survey – has found.
Over 66% of the total households in Delhi are owned by their occupants while the rest pay rent. Almost 80% do not own air conditioners or computers and ₹25,000 is the maximum ceiling of average monthly expenditure incurred by 90% of the city’s total households.
While a little more than half of the total population, around 52%, has a personal vehicle, mostly a two wheeler. Around 6.59%, have both a two-wheeler and a four-wheeler, compared to those who have only four-wheelers, which constitute 4.34% of the total households with vehicles.
These are some of the findings of the Delhi government’s Directorate of Economics and Statistics’ two-part report on the Socio-Economic Profile of Residents of Delhi – the first part titled, and pertaining to, ‘Households Characteristics’ and the second on ‘Individual Characteristics’ – on the basis of data collected through a survey of a population of 1.02 crore from 20.05 lakh households in the city from November 2018 to November 2019.
With the population census of 2011 putting the population of Delhi at 1.67, this survey, according to government sources, may present the clearest picture yet regarding the Capital’s current demography. However, it is accompanied by a disclaimer that about 55% of the total projected population has been covered till the closing date of the survey.
The labour force participation rate was reported as 48.81% and the unemployment rate at 16.25%. The percentage distribution of the category of occupation put the percentage of those in the ‘Others’ category including pensioners, rentiers, those dependent on remittance and non-workers at 51.40%.
Pension benefits
Senior citizens constituted 5.41% of the total population. Among them, 43.28% avail old age pension, which is provided to those eligible for it over 60 years of age, from the Delhi government.
Though the total percentage of Delhi’s population assessed in the survey reported to be suffering from chronic illness was 2.60%, a majority of them, over 36%, were afflicted by diabetes, almost 22% by cardiac illness and over 9% by respiratory diseases. As many as 72.87% of the population in Delhi, the report stated, avail medical facilities from govt. hospitals and dispensaries while only 27.13% depends on private ones.