Public facilities

Also called: Collective provision of goods and services · Topic: Measuring Development: Income, HDI and Sustainability · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 1 "Development"

Meaning

Public facilities are goods and services, such as security, schools, health care and a clean environment, that are best and most cheaply provided collectively (for the whole community at once, usually by the government), because money in one person's pocket cannot buy them all.

This concept explains why a richer state is not always a better place to live. It also explains why NCERT says average income alone is a poor measure of development.

Explanation

What money cannot buy

NCERT says: "Money in your pocket cannot buy all the goods and services that you may need to live well." A family with a good income still usually cannot buy:

• A pollution-free environment. One family cannot clean the air of a whole city.
• Unadulterated medicines (medicines that are not fake or mixed with cheap material), unless it moves to a community that already has them.
• Protection from infectious diseases, unless the whole community takes preventive steps.
• One family clears its own stagnant water → mosquitoes still breed next door → the family can still get malaria.
• Only community-wide action stops the disease.

Why collective provision is cheaper

• Security: one security arrangement for a whole locality costs less than a private guard for every house.
• Schools: a child can study because other children also want to study, and because people believe the government should open schools. Where one school serves many families, the cost per child falls.
• Public goods link: many of these facilities have features of public goods (the theory is in market-structures-competition):
• non-rival: one person's use does not reduce what is left for others;
• non-excludable: people who do not pay cannot be kept out.
• Because non-payers cannot be kept out, a private seller cannot easily charge for them. So the market supplies too little, and collective provision is needed.

Worked example: income vs public facilities (NCERT comparison)

State	Per capita NSDP 2023-24	IMR (2020)	Literacy % (2017-18)	Secondary NAR (2017-18)
Haryana	₹3,25,759	28	82	73
Kerala	₹2,81,001	6	94	94
Bihar	₹60,337	27	62	69

• Per capita NSDP (Net State Domestic Product ÷ state population) is the average income of one person in a state.
• IMR (Infant Mortality Rate) = (babies who die before their first birthday in a year ÷ live births in that year) × 1,000.
• Step 1, income: Haryana ÷ Kerala = 3,25,759 ÷ 2,81,001 ≈ 1.16 times. Haryana is only a little richer.
• Step 2, infant deaths: Haryana ÷ Kerala = 28 ÷ 6 ≈ 4.7 times. Haryana loses far more babies.

• NCERT says "nearly three times". The correct figure is about 4.7 times.

• Step 3, conclusion: higher income did not buy better health. The difference comes from public facilities.

Kerala's secret: how public facilities improve outcomes

NCERT credits Kerala's low IMR to the "adequate provision of basic health and educational facilities".

• Education chain: educated mothers → better care of babies, earlier visits to the doctor, more immunisation.
• Health chain: health centres close by → more safe deliveries in hospitals.
• Result: IMR of 6 (2020) and a Neonatal Mortality Rate (deaths in the first 28 days per 1,000 live births) of 4 (SRS 2021) [4].

What makes facilities work, and what makes them fail

• Money is not enough. Facilities also need:
• governance (honest, accountable administration);
• staff presence, since teachers and doctors must actually turn up;
• community demand, since people must ask for the services;
• social norms, such as whether families are willing to send girls to school;

• local participation.

• When facilities are missing: many girls still cannot reach high school because there is no school nearby, no safe transport or no toilets.

• Community participation (citizens working together, for example cleaning public places, planting trees or running a school committee) creates local public goods without any market exchange. Nobody buys or sells anything.

In India

• Public Distribution System (PDS): the government network of ration shops (fair price shops) that sell food grains at subsidised prices. It is a key public facility for food.
• Tamil Nadu: 90% of rural people used a ration shop, against West Bengal: 35% (NCERT data).

• Wide use shows that the system actually delivers → cheap, reliable food → food security → better nutrition and less illness in rural Tamil Nadu.

• Kerala's health outcomes: IMR 6 (2020). Maternal Mortality Ratio (mothers' deaths from pregnancy-related causes per 1 lakh live births) of 20 (SRS), already inside the SDG target of ≤70 [4].

• National trend: India's IMR fell from 39 (2014) to 27 per 1,000 live births (SRS 2021) [4].
• SDG India Index 2023-24 (NITI Aayog): this index scores states from 0 to 100 on progress towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Kerala scores 79 (joint top with Uttarakhand), Bihar 57 (lowest) and India 71 [2][3]. States with better public facilities rank higher.
• Education as a public facility:
• A Directive Principle aimed at free and compulsory education for all children up to age 14 by 1960. The target was missed.
• It became a legal right under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009.

• The gap is still visible. Bihar's secondary NAR is 69 (2017-18), so about one-third of its 15–17-year-olds are not in secondary school.

• Kerala's next task: 34–46% of Kerala's women are overweight or obese, and 27% of its men have high or very high blood sugar (NFHS-5) [5]. Public health facilities must now also tackle lifestyle diseases.

Don't confuse with

• Public goods: this is a strict theory term for goods that are both non-rival and non-excludable (e.g. clean air, security). Public facilities is NCERT's broader term. It also covers schools and hospitals, which could in principle charge fees and keep people out, but which are cheapest and fairest when provided collectively.
• Per capita income: this measures what an average person can buy privately. Public facilities cover what private income cannot buy. Haryana has the higher per capita income, but Kerala has the better IMR.
• Private goods: these are bought and used by one buyer. If I eat it, you cannot (rival), and the seller can refuse non-payers (excludable). Public facilities are shared and used collectively.
• Community participation: this is how citizens themselves create or maintain local public goods without buying or selling. Public facilities are the goods and services themselves, whoever provides them.

Prelims Hooks

• Per NCERT, public facilities (security, schools, health care, pollution-free environment) are those best and most cheaply provided collectively. Money cannot buy a pollution-free environment or protection from infectious disease.
• Per capita income order (2023-24): Haryana > Kerala > Bihar. The best IMR (2020) is Kerala's 6. Trap: Haryana (28) is richer than Bihar but has a higher IMR than Bihar (27).
• NCERT's "nearly three times" is wrong. Haryana's IMR is 28 ÷ 6 ≈ 4.7 times Kerala's.
• NCERT attributes Kerala's low IMR to "adequate provision of basic health and educational facilities", not to higher income.
• Rural PDS use (NCERT): Tamil Nadu 90% vs West Bengal 35%.
• SDG India Index 2023-24 is released by NITI Aayog (not UNDP): Kerala 79, Bihar 57, India 71 [2][3].

Mains Points

• Growth vs development (GS-III): Haryana has about 1.16 times Kerala's per capita income but about 4.7 times its infant mortality. Kerala tops the SDG India Index with a score of 79 (2023-24) [2].
• This shows that public spending on health and education turns income into well-being.

• Use it to argue for public investment in human capital, and against judging progress by GDP alone.

• State capacity and delivery (GS-II): the PDS gap between Tamil Nadu (90%) and West Bengal (35%) shows that governance, staff presence and community demand matter as much as money spent.

• Link this to reforms such as the NFSA, ONORC and DBT.

• Also link it to missing school facilities (no nearby school, no safe transport, no toilets) that keep girls out of high school.

• Changing needs of public provision: Kerala has solved the old problems, with IMR 6 and NMR 4 [4]. It now faces lifestyle diseases: 27% of its men have high blood sugar (NFHS-5) [5].

• Public health systems must move from survival goals to managing non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
• Lagging states such as Bihar (NAR 69, SDG score 57) still need basic facilities first, so they need targeted, needs-based support.

Related concepts

• Regional disparity
• Net Attendance Ratio
• Gross Enrolment Ratio
• Community participation

Read more

• Beyond income: the Kerala-Haryana-Bihar comparison and public facilities