The no. of census houses has increased from 160.91 lakhs in 1990 to 201.40 lakhs in 2000, which represents a decadal increase of 25.16%. The highest increase of 40.30% is in case of Darjiling district followed by Nadia (36.57) and South 24 Parganas (35.87). Kolkata represents the lowest decadal increase of 8.26% followed by Medinipur (10.11%) and Dakshin Dinajpur (13.29% ) 

The percentage of residential houses to total census houses has slightly increased by 1.00 points at the total State level from 75.36% in 1990 to 76.36 % in 2000. Though percentage of residential houses has increased from 73.53 to 75.21 between 1990- 2000 in case of rural areas, the same has declined in case of urban areas from 80.22 to 79.21 indicating increase of non-residential activities in the urban areas

The number of hotels, lodges and guest houses has also increased from 11710 in 1990 to 23961in 2000 which represents percentage point increase of 0.05 among different uses of the census houses. Among the Districts the highest increase is in case of Kolkata by 1395 from 1185 to 2580 between 1990 2000 followed by Barddhaman (+1214) and South 24 Parganas (+1213). The lowest increase is in case of D. Dinajpur (+105), Koch Bihar (+205) and Maldah (+265)

In case of place of worship as census houses there is increase from 1.49 lakhs in 1990 to 2.28 lakhs in 2000 i.e. increase of 0.78 lakhs by absolute number. Percentage wise this represents increase from 0.96% of the total census houses in 1990 to 1.17 % in 2000 i.e. percentage point increase of 0.22. South 24 Parganas has reported highest increase in the place of worship by absolute number from 12695 in 1990 to 24478 in 2000 i.e. increase of 11783. Medinipur (+10372) and North 24 Parganas (+10270) are close behind. Purulia on the other hand has reported the lowest increase in absolute number from 7105 in 1990 to 7495 in 2000 i.e. increase of 390. Kolkata (+1658) and Birbhum (+1818) have the second and third lowest increase of places of worship

As for the building materials used in case of construction of the roof of the houses the highest percentage is tiles / slates which has replaced grass / thatch / bamboo as the highest component of roof with share of 34.86% of the households in 2000 against 26.81 in 1990. Grass / thatch / bamboo are now being used as roof material by 21.61% of the households in 2000 against 37.35% in 1990. Concrete remain as the third highest roof material with 20.86% of the households using it in 2000 against 15.05% in 1990.Use of G. I./ Metals / Asbestos sheets as roof materials have also increased from 12.77 in 1990 to 19.96 in 2000. Among the districts the highest percentage of household having tiles / slates as roof material are Maldah (64.11%), Haora (57.33%) and N. 24Parganas (52.75%). Birbhum has the highest percentage of households having grass/ thatch / bamboo as roof material with 60.58% to total households followed by Bankura (47.68%) and Medinipur (39.13%). Kolkata has the highest percentage of households (52.96%) living under concrete roofs followed by Haora (32.20%) and N.24 Parganas (31.91%). Use of G.I. / Metal / Asbestos sheets as roof material is highest in case of Darjiling with 69.42% of the household living under roofs constructed with such materials with Dakshin Dinajpur (69.37%) and Koch Bihar (68.63%) closely behind 

For floor material used in census houses mud continues to be the dominant material and has been used by 61.97% of the households in 2000 against 68.99 in 1990. Cement also continues to be the second highest floor material with 32.23% of the total households having cement floors in 2000 which is an increase from 26.90% recorded in 1990. Brick / stone is the floor material for 2.65% of the households while mosaic or floor tiles have been used by 2.35% of the households

In case of distribution of households by occupation of number of rooms it will be seen that single room households still continue to be predominant though reduced by 4.45 percentage points from 57.16% of the total households in 1990 to 52.70% in 2000. In case of rural areas percentage of one roomed households have from 59.42 in 1990 to 55.49 in 2000 while the decline is more prominent in the urban areas from 51.57 to 45.87 during the decade under review. Among the districts the highest percentage of one-roomed households is in case of South 24 Parganas with 67.68% followed by Nadia (64.37%) and U.Dinajpur (62.90%). Barddhaman has the lowest percentage of households living in one-roomed houses (38.20%) with Darjiling (39.48%) and Hugli (43.99%) coming behind. The percentage of 2-roomed households has slightly increased at the State level from 26.58% to 28.69% during 1990-2000. The percentage of households having no exclusive room has, however, increased to 0.06% to 1.03% during the same period and has shown significant increase by absolute number from 0.07 lakhs in 1990 to 1.61 lakhs in 2000

In case of availability of drinking water it will be seen that in 1990, 27.79% of total households in the State had drinking water sources within the house. This has increased to 32.11% in 2000 i.e. a percentage point increase of 4.32. In rural areas 23.41% of the households have source of drinking water within the house against 18.37% in 1991 while in urban areas the percentage has increased to 53.44 from 50.96. In 1990 9.44% of the total households had tap water as source of drinking water within the house and 11.69% had the same source outside the house i.e. 21.13% of the households had used tap water as drinking water. This has increased to 21.40% in 2000 with 10.79%within the house and 10.61% outside the house.Hand pump / Tubewell remains the highest source of drinking water both in 1990 and 2000 with 60.85% households using this source in 1990 and 67.12% in 2000. Well is the third source of drinking water after Tubewell and tap water but percentage wise its use has declined to 9.98% of the total households from 15.77% in 1990. Kolkata has the largest percentage of households using tap water for drinking purposes being 76.84% of the total households with 55.35% having access within the house and 21.54% having access outside the house in 2000. Hugli comes next in the use of tap water for drinking purposes with 30.38% of households using this source. Out of this 16.69% have access within the house and 13.69% outside the house. With 29.43% of the total households using tap water as source of drinking water in 2000 Haora comes third in this category. Out of this 14.63% use tap water within the house while 14.80% outside. D.Dinajpur has the lowest percentage of households having tap water as drinking water source with 1.03%of the households having tap inside the house and 1.88% outside the house. U.Dinajpur and Murshidabad come next with 3.41% and 4.75% of the households respectively reporting tap water as source of drinking water

If we look at the distribution of households by type of latrines we shall see that out of total 157.15 lakh households 68.69 lakhs or 43.71% have latrines and 88.46 lakhs or 56.29% have no latrines. Among the households having latrines 32.92 lakhs or 20.95% have water closets, 27.55 lakhs or 17.53% have pit latrines and 8.22 lakhs or 5.23% have service latrines. In rural areas 30.05 lakh households or 26.93% have latrines and 81.56 lakh households or 73.07% have no latrines. Here 17.12 lakhs or 15.35% have pit latrines, 7.78 lakhs or 6.97% have water closets and 5.14 lakhs or 4.61% have service latrines. In case of urban areas 38.63 lakh or 84.85% of the urban households have latrines while 6.90 lakhs or 15.15% have no latrines. Among the urban households having latrines 25.13 lakhs or 55.20% have water closets, 10.42 lakhs or 22.89% have pit latrines and 3.07 lakhs or 6.76% have service latrines. Kolkata has the largest percentage of 95.67% among the total households having latrines with 74.67% having water closets 15.11% having pit latrines and 5.89% having service latrines. 4.32% of the households in Kolkata have no latrine. N.24 Parganas comes next with 75.33% households having latrines and 24.67% having no latrines. Among the households having latrines 35.20% have water closets, 32.17% have pit latrines and 7.96% have service latrines. Haora has the third highest percentage of 60.92 among the households which have latrine and 39.08% have no latrines. Puruliya has the highest percentage of households having no latrines at 90.16% followed by Bankura (88.12%) and Birbhum (83.91%). If we compare the availability of latrines in 2000 with that of 1990 it will be seen that in 1990 39.44 lakh households or 31.51% of the total had latrines which has increased to 68.69 lakhs or 43.71%.Thus during the last decade additional 29.25 lakh households have acquired latrines i.e. a percentage point gain of 12.21.In rural areas availability of latrine has increased from 12.31% in 1990 to 26.93 in 2000 while in urban areas it has improved to 84.85% from 78.75%   .

In case of use of fuel for cooking it will be seen that use of fire wood still remains the highest source though its use has declined from 32.13% of the total households in 1990 to 30.20% in 2000.Use of LPG has picked up considerably as fuel for cooking from 6.09 lakh households or 4.87% in 1990 to 19.62 lakhs or 12.49% in 2000. Use of coal, Lignite or charcoal as fuel for cooking has declined considerably from 32.15 lakh households or 25.69% in 1990 to 19.51 lakh households or 12.42% in 2000. Cow dung cake still remains a major source of fuel for cooking with 18.99 lakh households or 12.08% in 2000 though declined from 22.58 lakh households or 18.04% using it in 1990. Use of Kerosene as fuel for cooking has increased from 4.62 lakh households or 3.69% in 1990 to 7.74 lakh households or 4.93% in 2000. Unspecified fuel such as crop residue, twigs, forest by-products etc. occupy a large share of the fuel for cooking with 43.18 lakh households or 27.48%, the second highest after firewood, using these as source of fuel. There are considerable differences between rural and urban areas in such use of fuel for cooking. For example firewood is used by 37.34% of the rural households the highest percentage but its use is limited to 12.70% in urban areas. Again LPG is the source of fuel for cooking for the largest percentage of urban households at 37.38% in 2000 but its use is limited to only 2.33% of the rural households. Kerosene which is used by only 0.56% of the rural households is used by 15.64% of the urban households. Coal is used by 27.42% of the urban households the second highest after LPG, but only 6.29% of the rural households use this source as fuel for cooking. On the other hand cow dung cake is used by 16.27% of the rural households but only 1.84% of the urban households use this as fuel for cooking. Only 4.53% of the urban households use unspecified sources like crop residue, twigs etc. as fuel but 36.84% of the rural households the, second highest after firewood, use such sources as fuel for cooking. There is considerable difference among the districts in the use of fuel for cooking. Thus Kolkata has the largest percentage of LPG using households at 48.41% with N.24 Parganas a distant second at 23.57% and Haora third at 20.40%. But on the other hand Puruliya has only 2.79% of the households using LPG as fuel for cooking, Maldah 3.43% and U. Dinajpur 3.81% of the total households. In case of use of firewood as fuel Jalpaiguri has the largest percentage of households at 69.70% followed by Puruliya (58.48%) and Darjiling (57.06%). Kolkata has the lowest percentage of households using firewood as fuel at 3.05% with U. Dinajpur (14.48%) and Murshidabad (15.36%) coming next. In use of coal, Lignite and charcoal Barddhaman (32.80%) has the highest percentage of households using this as fuel for cooking with Haora (23.12%) and N. 24 Parganas (20.09%) being second and third respectively. On the other hand North Bengal districts have very little use of coal as fuel for cooking with Koch Bihar (0.17%) having the lowest percentage of households using this source followed by Jalpaiguri (0.72%) and U.Dinajpur (1.69%). In case of cow dung cake Birbhum has the highest percentage of households (36.17%) using this as source of fuel for cooking followed by Medinipur (24.28%) and Murshidabad (20.81%).Kolkata has the least percentage of households (0.48%) using cow dung cake as fuel with Jalpaiguri (1.87%) and Darjiling (2.46%) coming next. In case of use of Kerosene oil as fuel for cooking Kolkata has the highest percentage of households (39.78%) among the districts followed at considerable distance by Darjiling (9.88%) and Haora (9.82%). D. Dinajpur has the lowest percentage of households (0.32%) using Kerosene oil as fuel for cooking with Bankura (0.33%) and Murshidabad (0.38%) closely behind

In case of housing having assets like Radio/Transistor it will be seen that 38.64% of the total households have this with 36.67% of the rural households and 43.47% of the urban households having this facility. In Kolkata 49.49% of the households have radio/ transistor, the highest in the State, with Haora (49.39%) and Medinipur (49.03%) following behind. Koch Bihar has the lowest percentage in this regard (16.73%) followed by U. Dinajpur (19.88%) and Jalpaiguri (22.50%)

In case of Telephone services it may be seen that 6.70% of the households in the State have telephone facilities with 1.79% of the rural households and 18.72% of the urban households having this facility. Among the districts 30.72% of the households in Kolkata have telephones, the highest in the State with N.24 Parganas (11.67%) and Haora (9.05%) distant second and third.Murshidabad (2.31%) has the lowest percentage of households having telephones followed by Koch Bihar (2.44%) and Birbhum (2.66%)

In case of households having Scooter / Motor cycle / Moped it may be seen that 5.03% of the total households with 3.06% of the rural households and 9.86% of the urban households having any of them. Among the districts Barddhaman has the highest percentage of households (10.10%) having this asset followed by Kolkata (8.70%) and Hugli (8.06%).D. Dinajpur has the lowest percentage of households (2.06%) having scooter etc. followed by U. Dinajpur (2.13%) and Koch Bihar (2.15%)

It may be seen that 30.08% of the households do not have any of the assets described at paragraph 21-26. 34.04% of the rural households and 20.39% of the urban households do not have any of these assets