The first Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) of the country after independence come out with severe backward picture of the rural households. The previous SECC in the same nature was happened in 1934.
The backward picture of the rural areas was elaborated in the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 (SECC) for rural households.
SECC for rural areas was conducted by the Department of Rural Development was released by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
The census has identified 17.91 crore as rural households, of the total 24.39 crores households in the country. The remaining are urban households.
SECC 2011 has three census components which were conducted by three separate authorities but under the overall coordination of Department of Rural Development in the Government of India.
Of all important backward elements, the landless and daily wage earning nature of the rural areas is the highlighting one. Nearly thirty percent of Indian rural households doesn’t have land and depends on casual labor for subsistence.
Other indicators of backwardness, measured in the form of deprivation also show that the rural sector needs urgent policy action from the government in a bigger scale. The census identifies socio economic status of families in terms of deprivation. Some of the notable deprivation factors found through the census shows that rural areas’ backwardness has not been substantially eroded in the context of faster growth in the last two decades. Following are some of the deprivation factors.
- Families with no adult member is 3,64%
- Female headed households without any male adult member are 3.85%.
- SC/ST households constitute to 21.5% of the total rural households.
- Households with just one room is 13% in the rural areas.
The census shows that nearly 60% of the rural households suffer from at least one deprivation. The newly released data refers only to the rural people.
Data for the urban households as well as a caste based census data are to be released later.
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