The Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) has brought to the fore over 46 lakh distinct caste names but the government could not go ahead with making public the findings as the data contained 8.19 crore errors of which 1.45 crore still remain.
The Union Home Ministry on Tuesday said it is fully committed to completing the SECC and requested the state governments for its fullest cooperation to complete the rectification of errors.
The Ministry said it emerged that 46,73,034 distinct caste names have been recorded in the SECC. "These include caste/sub-caste names, synonyms, surnames, clan/gothra names, phonetic variations, sections, sub-groups etc. These will have to be classified by experts having domain knowledge on these issues," it said. As far as the caste particulars were concerned, 8,19,58,314 errors were found in the caste returns and it was communicated to the states and Union Territories for rectification.
While the states corrected 6,73,81,119 errors, 1,45,77,195 are yet to be rectified. Maharashtra tops the list with 69.1 lakh pending cases followed by Madhya Pradesh (13.9 lakh), West Bengal (11.6 lakh), Rajasthan (7.2 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (5.4 lakh), Karnataka (2.9 lakh), Bihar (1.7 lakh) and Tamil Nadu (1.4 lakh).
(Published 28 July 2015, 19:56 IST)