Cramped nation

The average urban Indian has a personal living space of 117 sq ft, equivalent to a 11.7ft x 10ft room, which includes living, sleeping, cooking and toilet space. A prisoner in US jails gets a minimum personal space of 60 sq ft. One in 3 urban Indians has to make do with just that much or less. In the past 50 years, both the number and proportion of Indians living in homes with a per capita space of less than 100 sq ft have gone up substantially. The second planning commission report said 46% of urban and 38.5% of rural households had less than 100 sq ft per head of floor space in 1953-54. In 2006-07, the year in which the 63rd round survey was conducted by NSSO, 55% of city dwellers and 56% of villagers were living in homes with less than 100 square feet per person. The data shows that the single largest chunk of houses is in the 322 to 581 sq ft range as 31% of city and 35.3% of rural houses are of that size. With 807 sq ft as average covered area, urban areas of J&K have the biggest houses in India. Kerala, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Rajasthan have average house sizes ranging between 600-700 sq feet, while Tripura and Andhra Pradesh have the smallest urban houses with less than 400 sq ft of average area. In rural India, people of Arunachal Pradesh have the biggest houses averaging over 1,000 sq feet while Chhattisgarh and J&K have average house size bigger than 800 sq feet.

Average house size in India : 504 sq ft (urban), 494 sq ft (rural).

State with biggest urban houses : J&K (av size 807sq ft) .

State(s) with smallest urban houses : Tripura and Andhra (less than 400 sq ft).

State with biggest rural houses : Arunachal Pradesh (over 1,000sq ft).

State(s) with smallest rural houses : Tripura, Andhra Pradesh & Tamil Nadu (less than 400 sq ft).