Know Your Public Facilities

Public facilities are the facilities that are provided to the general public at large. A single individual cannot fulfil all of the necessary facilities on his own. Here in this article i.e. Know your public facilities, you will know about the public facilities and who is responsible for providing all these facilities, etc. This article will help the students to create a basic political and social base about public facilities concept.

Public Facilities

There are many facilities that are needed to be provided to everyone in the society like water and once these services are provided these can be shared with many people in the society. These are called public facilities. For example, a school will help a number of people to get an education and electricity will not only help the households but also farmers for irrigation in their farms and micro, small, medium and large industries, etc as well. Other examples of public facilities: water, cleanliness & sanitation, healthcare system, transportation or communication facilities, etc.

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Role of Government

When we talk about the public facilities, then there should be someone who can provide all these services to the people and the major question that arises here is who will be that "someone"?

Private entities work to get profit and they will not be interested in public facilities like cleanliness or sanitation, a campaign against malaria or dengue, etc. because here they will not get any profit but in other facilities, they may be interested such as in electricity, transportation, communication or hospitals, etc. where they can earn huge profits. Private entities provide their services for consideration and affordable rates and those rates will not be affordable for some people and then some people will be deprived of such facilities. 

In these cases, the government of the country plays a huge role which provides public facilities for the welfare of society. Article 21 of Part 3 of the Indian Constitution deals with the fundamental right ie. Right to life and public facilities are the basic needs of the people and thus the responsibility to provide these services must be of the government of the country.

Example of Public Facilities Provide By The Government

There are various types of public facilities which are being provided to the people of the country. Mostly these facilities are provided by the government of the country but some of the facilities are also provided by private entities but at costly rates. 

The services provided by the government which is affordable to everyone are given below:

• Government Hospitals & other healthcare institutions

• Government Schools, colleges, universities and other educational institutions

• Construction of dams and production or distribution of electricity

• Banking and insurance services

• Distribution of ration at affordable rates through Public Distribution System (PDS)

• Pension or Unemployment allowance services

• Subsidies are being provided for the development of the industries

• Affordable housing through schemes like Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana

• Affordable transportation like roadways, railways, airways or waterways services

• Maintenance of cultural and historical monuments of India to develop Tourism

• Affordable communication or broadband services

The list goes on. These are a few of the facilities provided by the Government. There are various programs or initiatives being taken for different sectors of the economy and for different people of the society to provide them with a decent standard of living.

Money For Public Facilities

Every year the government introduces the budget in the Parliament of the country which is called the annual financial statement. In this, the government discusses the income and expenditure of the next year's programs, campaigns, policies, etc. The major source of income for the government taxes and this income goes to incurring expenditure on various public facilities.

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Did You Know?

As per 2018 data, the government of India's expenditure was more than 21 lakhs crore which includes interest payments and subsidies. The major expenditure of the government goes to public facilities only.