Govt releases socio-economic and caste census for better policy-making

Govt releases socio-economic and caste census for better policy-making

The union government recently released socio-economic and caste census (SECC) 2011.

• This is the first paperless census conducted on hand-held electronic devices by the government.

Details of the Census:

• According to the census, there are a total number of 24.39 crore households in the country, of which 17.91 crore live in villages. Of these, 10.69 crore households are considered as deprived.
• The census says that 23.52% rural families have no literate adult above 25 years, suggesting a poor state of education among rural masses.
• The census indicates that one out of three families living in villages is landless and depends on manual labour for livelihood. The deprivation data reveal that 5.37 crore (29.97%) households in rural areas are landless deriving a major part of their income from manual labour.
• As many as 2.37 crore (13.25%) families in villages live in houses of one room with ‘kaccha’ walls and roof.
• 53%, or 3.86 crore, families living in villages belong to SC/ST categories.
• 6% of all rural households in the country pay income tax.
• As for sources of income, 9.16 crore households (51.14%) depend on manual casual labour followed by cultivation (30.10%).
• 5 crore (14.01%) rural families are dependent on income from other sources which include government service, private sector and PSUs.
• 08 lakh households fall back on ragpicking while 6.68 lakh depend on begging and charity alms.
• Transgenders comprise 0.1% of India’s rural population. Andaman & Nicobar islands, West Bengal, Gujarat, Odisha and Mizoram have the highest proportions of transgenders.
• 6% of rural Indians were unmarried, 40% are currently married and 3.5% are divorced.
• Daman and Diu lead the country in the proportion of their rural population that has remained unmarried — at 55.9%, this is far higher than the national average. Chandigarh, on the other hand, has only 23.2% of its population that has never married.

The rural development ministry has taken a decision to use the SECC data in all its programmes.

Data on Literacy:

• The Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 (SECC) has found that 36% of the 884 million people in rural India are illiterate. This is higher than the 32% recorded by the Census of India 2011.
• Of the 64% literate rural Indians, a more than a fifth have not even completed primary school. The SECC also found that only 5.4% of rural India has completed high school with a mere 3.4% having graduated from college.
• This poor state of rural education is reflected in the fact that 23.5% of rural households had no adults above the age of 25 who are literate – one of the categories of deprivation measured by the SECC.
• The performance within States is hugely varied, with an alarming 47.6% of rural Rajasthanis remaining illiterate, compared to 9.3% in Lakshadweep and 11.4% in Kerala.
• Delhi performs the best when it comes to percentage of its rural population that has completed graduate studies – at 9.6%, its performance is almost thrice as good as the national average.