India - Housing Condition Survey, July 2008- June 2009, NSS 65th Round

Information as to whether, in general, ventilation of the dwelling unit is good, satisfactory or bad will be collected and entered against this item in terms of codes.
It is to be noted that ventilation of all the rooms in the dwelling unit is to be considered. By ventilation it is generally meant the extent to which the rooms are open to air and light. For eliciting this information, the investigator will have to depend mainly on the judgement of the informant. A few guidelines are suggested below which may be helpful for the investigator for assessing the situation.

(i) If the majority of the rooms have two or more windows with arrangement for cross ventilation, the dwelling unit may be considered as having 'good' ventilation and code 1 will be recorded.

(ii) If the majority of the rooms have two or more windows without having any arrangement for cross ventilation or if majority of the living rooms have only a single window each with proper arrangement for cross ventilation, the dwelling unit will be considered to have a 'satisfactory' ventilation arrangement and in such cases code 2 will be recorded.

(iii) If the majority of the rooms have no window or have only one window each without any arrangement for cross ventilation, the dwelling unit will be considered to have 'bad' ventilation and code 3 will be entered.

It may, however, be noted that, in some cases, the rooms of the dwelling unit may be such that it does not have proper ventilation, as per the criteria mentioned above, but the rooms have proper air-conditioning facility. Such cases will also be considered as 'good' ventilation and code 1 will be entered.