Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011, path-breaking effort -- R Vaidyanathan
IIM Bangalore
The Socio Economic Caste Census-2011 (SECC-2011) which was released by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on 3rd July 2015 is a path breaking effort undertaken by our agencies. Ministry of Rural Development started the Socio-Economic Caste census-2011 in June 2011 by a comprehensive door to door enumeration across the country.
It is a study of socio economic status of rural and urban households. It has 3 census components conducted under the overall coordination of Department of Rural Development in the central Government. Census in Rural areas conducted by Department of Rural Development. [DoRD].Urban areas under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation [MoHUPA].Caste aspect is under Ministry of Home Affairs Registrar General of India and Census commissioner of India.
Even though the data is collected “respondents input” with the counter sign of enumerator. However the collected data meets the approval of Gram Sabha and Panchayats—which is an interesting aspect of the data base.
Key findings:
Total households in the country –both Rural and Urban is 24.39 Crore (243.9million) of which total rural households is 17.91 crore (179.1 million). Some of the salient aspects of this study, taken from the SECC site are listed below:
Automatic Exclusion criteria
Nearly 7 crore or 40% of the households (in Rural India) do have one of the 14 characteristics listed below and have been excluded from the study:
- Motorized 2/ 3/ 4 wheeler/fishing boat.
- Mechanized 3-4 wheeler agricultural equipment.
- Kisan credit card with credit limit of over Rs.50,000 (approx $800).
- Household member government employee.
- Households with non-agricultural enterprises registered with government.
- Any member of household earning more than Rs. 10,000 per month.
- Paying income tax.
- Paying professional tax.
- 3 or more rooms with Pucca walls and roof.
- owns a refrigerator.
- Owns landline phone.
- Owns more than 2.5 acres of irrigated land with 1 irrigation equipment.
- 5 acres or more of irrigated land for two or more crop season.
- Owning at least 7.5 acres of land or more with at least one irrigation equipment.
If the government decides to use these criteria for excluding from many social welfare schemes then it would have made a tectonic shift in the leaking “welfare state”, meaning several beneficiaries of the Reservation system in place in India would satisfy at least one or more of the above 14 characteristics.
Some highlights from the Rural side:
- SCs constitute 18.46 % of rural households and STs 10.97%.
- 3.85% are headed by women and 6% households have a disabled person
- Main source of Income for Rural households is Manual casual labour [ 51%] and cultivation [30%]
- In rural areas nearly 10% of the households can be classified as salaried households with Gov. salary constituting 5% of the households
- Interestingly 94% of rural households own a house [ Kuccha or Pucca etc]
Note: Kuccha and Pucca houses are differentiated by the use of cement/ concrete
Based on Deprivation criteria given below:
- Households with one or less room, Kuccha walls and kuccha roof
- No adult member in household between age 18 and 59
- Female headed household with no adult male member between 16 and 59
- Households with differently-abled member with no other able bodied adult member
- SC/ST Households
- Households with no literate adult above age 25 years
- Landless households deriving a major part of their income from manual labour
We find at least 48.5 % of the households are having at least one of the “Criteria” of deprivation. Kindly note that all SC/ ST are categorized as deprived households which may not be true for some of them.
Assets and Liabilities
| Description | Details |
| Asset Holding | Interestingly 21% of Rural households possess 2/ 3/ 4 wheeler vehicles/ mechanized boats and 11% have refrigerators |
| Income Tax | Only 5.5% of rural households pay income tax |
| Landholding | 56% are landless, with only 30% holding land |
Disclaimer
The data of SECC does not and cannot super impose itself fully on the census data. While there is a high degree of compatibility in the two sets of data the findings could be different because the duration of census and that of SECC is different. Census 2011 on the other hand was conducted during the period 9th to 28th February 2011. Socio Economic Caste Census 2011 was largely carried out in 2011 and 2012 with a few states taking enumeration and verification in 2013 also.
Summary
- If only 1 in 3 households are land owners, does it even make sense for the Government to have a Land Bill? Why not just be a facilitator and get out of the way?
- The low percentage of tax base in the rural households points to simplifying and eventually removing Income Tax altogether for everyone.
- Revenue shortfall from Income Tax collection can be made up by auctioning and perhaps taxing consumption as a Value Added Tax.
Note:
1. The conversion rate used in this article is 1 USD = 62.5 Rupees.https://performancegurus.net/portfolio-items/socio-economic-caste-census-2011-a-path-breaking-effort/