What share of households gets its drinking water from an improved source located within its own premises, so nobody has to fetch water from outside. Muslim households are ahead of Hindu households here, driven by a rural advantage.
From microdataReproduce this view. This figure is recomputed from the unit-level survey microdata, the raw NSS or PLFS records behind the linked source. Source: NSS 76th 1.2 (2018). Each value is computed from the data file; every row records its own source and method.
Bottom line
About 69% of Muslim households had drinking water on their own premises in 2018, so no one had to walk to fetch it, against 63% of Hindu households. Like toilets, this is a measure where Muslims sit a little above the national level, helped by being a more urban community.
How to read the chart
The chart compares the share of households with an improved water source on their own premises across communities for 2018; higher is better, because it means no daily walk to fetch water. The Urban vs rural tab splits the two.
Why it matters
Water on the premises saves hours of fetching, almost always women's and girls' time, and cuts the contamination that comes with carrying and storing water. It feeds straight into health, school attendance and the time women have for paid work.
Status
Ahead
Muslim 69.3% vs Hindu 62.5% in 2018, 6.8pp ahead. The Muslim edge on water, like sanitation, owes much to urban concentration, and it sits within a wider picture where the basic-amenities story runs opposite to the income story.
Deeper analysis
Potential drivers
Urban living · Piped, on-premises water is far more common in towns, where Muslims are over-represented ↗ Sachar Committee Report, 2006.
Dense settlement · Compact urban neighbourhoods are cheaper to connect to a piped network than scattered rural homes.
Public schemes · Expanding piped-water schemes have reached urban and, more recently, rural homes across communities.
Key levers
Jal Jeevan Mission · The rural piped-water push is the main lever to extend on-premises water to the households still without it.
Urban equity · The remaining urban gaps are in informal settlements, which need targeted connections.
Source sustainability · A tap helps only if the source lasts, the harder long-term task.
Key stakeholders
Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen): The national rural sanitation programme, under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, that built over ten crore household toilets to make villages free of open defecation.
Jal Jeevan Mission: The Ministry of Jal Shakti mission to provide a safe piped drinking water connection to every rural household, with source sustainability and community management.
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin): The Ministry of Rural Development scheme that helps houseless families and those in kutcha homes build a pucca house with basic amenities.
Aga Khan Agency for Habitat, India: The Aga Khan network's habitat agency, building water security, sanitation, low-cost housing and disaster resilience in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana. Founded by the Ismaili community, it serves all communities.
Human Welfare Foundation: A development NGO whose community work includes drinking-water and shelter projects for deprived families in disadvantaged, largely minority areas. Donate ↗
WaterAid India80G + FCRA ↗: A water and sanitation NGO working since 1986 across about 1,200 villages in ten states to make clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene reach the poorest. Donate ↗
Habitat for Humanity India80G + FCRA ↗: A housing NGO that provides decent, affordable homes and sanitation to low-income and marginalised families and helps disaster-hit families rebuild. Donate ↗
Sulabh International: India's pioneering sanitation movement, which has built over sixteen lakh household toilets and ten thousand public toilet complexes and works to rehabilitate manual scavengers.
Badges link to an independent or registered credential where the organisation publishes one (Credibility Alliance, GiveIndia, 80G, FCRA). Many smaller NGOs do not take part in these registries, so a missing badge is not a mark against an organisation.
About this measurement
Definition. Share of households whose main source of drinking water is an improved source (piped, tubewell, protected well, bottled and similar) located within the household's own premises, so no one has to fetch water from outside.
Methodology. Computed from the unit-level microdata of NSS 76th round Schedule 1.2 (Drinking Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Housing Condition, Jul-Dec 2018; 1.07 lakh households): improved principal source located within premises, by religion of household head, weighted. Report 584 publishes this by state and social group, never religion. The extraction reproduces the published all-India values across 24 validation cells to a worst gap of 0.24 points (improved-within-premises all-India: 63.6 computed vs 63.8 published, the strictest blank-distance treatment).
Muslim households are AHEAD of Hindu households here (69.3% vs 62.5%), driven by a rural advantage (65.9 vs 54.3); urban Muslims trail urban Hindus on piped-into-dwelling water (36.5% vs 41.4%, in the data file). Unit data: the original mospi.gov.in TXT distribution (the current NADA catalog ships only a proprietary binary; re-fetch URLs + sha256 in sources/nss76/). NSO unit-data rider: religion is self-reported; the split is indicative; no sub-state estimates.