In the rural areas, however, radio is more popular than TV, with 30 per cent households having radio and only 18 per cent TV. About one-seventh rural TV owners had colour TV sets, while in towns every third television happens to be colour.

The NSS report, on "Travel and Use of Mass Media and Financial Services by Indian Households," takes into account the conditions prevailing during Janaury-June 1998. According to the report, newspaper reading habits in rural areas are very poor. With the exception of Kerala, less than 10 per cent households subscribe to daily newspapers. In Kerala, every fourth household subscribes to a daily newspaper.

The information regarding rural telephony is even more startling. Over 98 per cent rural households do not have a telephone. As many as 72 per cent among them have never even used a telephone. More than a third of the people have to travel more than 5 km to make a telephone call.

In urban areas, the situation was better, but not as much as one would have desired. Only 14 per cent households enjoy the telephone facility. Among those who do not have a telephone at their home, one third are those who have never used a telephone.

The report also highlights banking and access to credit. In the entire country, 28 per cent of rural households and 54 per cent of urban households had at least one member with a bank or post office account, or an account with a cooperative society or a self-help group.

In both rural and urban areas, seeking bank loans was most prevalent in Kerala - 16 per cent of households seeking loans during the last two years. In the entire rural India, 11 per cent of households sought loans during the same period, while 9 per cent did so in urban areas. Seeking of loans from cooperative credit societies was twice as prevalent in rural areas as in urban ones.

For rural households, obtaining loans for farm business appears to have been easier than obtaining loans for non-farm business.

Unhelpful officials and prolonged delays were the two most often-cited difficulties in all banks and cooperative credit societies.