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Socio Economic and Caste Census: picture is not rosy

Last Updated 03 July 2015, 20:06 IST

More than half of the rural households in India do not have a permanent source of income and depend on manual casual labour for their livelihood. Worse, a third of rural households were landless, the survey has revealed.

The census stated that of the 17.91 crore rural households in the country, 10.69 crore were deprived. It also gave grading of deprivation on the basis of seven criteria to help the government better target the beneficiaries through schemes for poor and marginalised.

The census stated that a little above 30 per cent of the rural households were engaged in cultivation. Those with regular employment were a meagre 14 per cent. The rest earned their livelihood either through non-agricultural sources or domestic service.

In another startling revelation, the census showed that the highest earning member in a majority of rural households earned below Rs 5,000 per month and about 36 per cent of all rural households were illiterate.

Rural Development Minister Birender Singh, who was also present at the release of the SECC, said the government will use the caste census for better data on household growth.

“The data is an opportunity to make evidence-based selection, prioritisation and targeting of beneficiaries in different programmes,” Singh said. He said the rural development ministry has taken a decision to use the SECC data in all its programmes.

The data would help implementation of schemes like housing for all, education and skills thrust, MGNREGA, the National Food Security Act, interventions for differently-abled, interventions for women-led households and others, an official statement  said.

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(Published 03 July 2015, 20:06 IST)

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