Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011

The 1st ever post independence Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 began on 29 June 2011 from the Sankhola village of Hazemara block in West Tripura District.  Government released the results of SECC-2011 in July 2015. SECC-2011 was first caste based census of Independent India. Earlier, caste based data was collected in 1931 Census. It was also SECC-2011 was also India’s first paperless Census conducted on handheld devices by the government in 640 districts of the country. Government would use SECC-2011 data in all programmes such as NFSM, MGNREGA, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana etc and to identify the beneficiaries of direct benefit transfer (DBT) under the JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) Trinity.

Objectives

The key rationale behind conducting a socio-economic and caste census was to assess the population that is actually below the poverty line (BPL).

Methodology

The SECC-2011 was based on exclusion criteria under which households possessing specified assets are automatically excluded from the list. The crucial difference between past BPL censuses (as the SECC is also called) and the current one, apart from the methodology, is that caste was analysed for the first time on a nationwide scale. The SECC data included:

• households without shelter
• destitute/living on alms
• manual scavengers
• Primitive Tribal Groups
• legally released bonded labourers.

The above households would be given highest priority for inclusion in the BPL list. Rest households are identified as poor from the angle of deprivation to which they are subjected to. The Angle of Deprivation is based on several deprivation factors such as: the households which have only one room with kacha walls and kacha roof; there is no adult member in the household between 16-59 age; female headed households with no adult male member between age 16 to 59; households without able bodied adult members, households without literacy; landless households earning via only manual causal labour.

The government had fixed a formula to rank the households on the basis of deprivation score on the basis of seven criteria. The order of priority for inclusion of households in the BPL list is the largest number of deprivations to smallest number of deprivations.

Further, there was a provision to automatically exclude the people from BPL list if they have certain assets, for example- two/three vehicles, motorized boats, tractors and other farming machines, Kisan card with credit limit above Rs. 50000, households with any member as government employee (except honorarium based workers like ASHA, Anganwadi workers), households with some registered enterprises, households with any family member earning more than Rs. 10000 per month, income tax payees, households with pukka houses, having a refrigerator or landline phones, having 2.5 acre or more land with at least one tube well etc.

Key Findings

• Out of the 24.4 crore households in India, 17.9 crore live in villages, which is 73.3% of all households in India. Out of these, 10.7 Crore households are deprived.
• Close to 30% rural households are landless and do the manual causal labour for bread winning; 13% live in one room huts (with kacha walls or roof) and 22% of them are from SC/ST category. More than half (56%) rural households in India are landless.
• 36% rural people are illiterate in India. This figure was recorded 32% in Census 2011. Out of the remaining 64% literate, around 20% have not completed primary school.
• 35% of urban Indian households qualify as poor
• Around 1.80 Lakh households are still engaged in manual scavenging for livelihood. Largest number of manual scavengers in India are in Maharashtra state. Close to 64 thousand out of 1.80 Lakh households in entire country are engaged in manual scavenging in Maharashtra for living. Maharashtra (63,713) is followed by Madhya Pradesh (23,093), Uttar Pradesh (17,619), Tripura (17,332) and Karnataka (15,375) and Punjab.
• India’s 0.1% population is comprised of transgender. Highest proportion of transgenders is in Andaman & Nicobar Islands, West Bengal, Gujarat, Odisha and Mizoram.

Important Trivia

• The SECC-2011 was NOT conducted under the Census Act 1948, which implies that the information collection was done on self-declaration model of the respondents.
• SECC 2011 has three census components which were conducted by three separate authorities as follows:
  • Census in Rural Area was conducted by the Department of Rural Development.
  • Census in Urban areas was done under the administrative jurisdiction of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation.
  • Caste Census was done under the administrative control of Ministry of Home Affairs (Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India)
• The paperless Census was done via handheld devices manufactured by Bharat Electronics Ltd. Management of Information System (MIS) for the management of the database of Socio Economic Census 2011 and to facilitate its subsequent use by the MORD, other ministries and State Governments to be facilitated by National Informatics Centre (NIC).
• The methodology for conducting the Census in Rural areas is based upon suggestion of Expert Group chaired by Dr NC Saxena and a Pilot Study carried out in 29 States/Union Territories, thereafter.

Analysis

Our country has always struggled to define who is poor. Despite of so many committees formed over the last many decades, there has never been a correct insight into who are the legitimate beneficiaries of the welfare schemes. Further, the official estimates of the poor have always tended to underestimate the number of poor in comparison to the estimates done by international organizations such as World Bank. In this context, the SECC data seems to quite enlightening and innovative. The use of various deprivation factors and automatic exclusion make it free from controversy. Further, its finding are different from what official estimations of rural as well as urban poor by different committees had been so far.

Extent of Rural Poverty

The key finding of the SECC-2011 is that rural India is poor. The main breadwinner of the 74.5% rural households in India earns less than Rs. 5000 per month. This ratio is even higher in states such as West Bengal (82.4%), Madhya Pradesh (83.52%) and Chhattisgarh (90.79%). However, SECC data needs to be adjusted for tendency of the rural people to not to tell correct income in fear of losing some entitlement benefits. However, despite we do all adjustment, there is no doubt that deprivation levels in rural India are still far too high.

Extent of Urban Poverty

According to SECC-2011, 35% of urban households are poor (below BPL). This figure is in striking contrast with the earlier estimates that ranged from 13.7% as per Tendulkar committee methodology, while 26.4% as per Rangarajan formula. Here, we should note that SECC numbers have greater credibility as the data has been collected via door-to-door enumeration. However, in urban areas also, there may be a tendency to understate income and asset ownership.

How SECC can help?

The decadal Census focuses on individuals while SECC has focussed on households. The data would be helpful for states and centre to target the most needy of the DBT and other schemes. Since SECC has also included the homeless, there is a chance that a large number of hitherto excluded people are brought into the welfare schemes of the government. Further, the caste data might be helpful on if the policy of reservation has really helped the most downtrodden of India.

Further, with SECC data, the writing on the wall is clear. The SECC makes case for a paradigm shift in the economic policy making and budget allocation both by central and union governments. At the core of it, the policy making needs to be decentralized and include the most downtrodden people.