Nearly half of rural households OBC, most in Tamil Nadu: Data

Amid a debate over a caste census in the country, data shows 44.4 per cent of the households in the rural areas are Other Backward Classes or the OBCs. In as many as seven states, OBC households make up for the majority of the rural households, according to a report by The Indian Express.

The data is part of the 'Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households and Land Holdings of Households in Rural India, 2019' by the National Statistical Office of the Ministry of Programme Implementation and Statistics. Of the estimated 17.24 crore rural households, 44.4 per cent were OBCs; 21.6 per cent Scheduled Castes (SC); 12.3 per cent Scheduled Tribes (ST) and 21.7 per cent other social groups.

Tamil Nadu has the most number of OBC households in rural areas, 67.7 per cent. The others among the seven are Bihar (58.1 per cent), Telangana (57.4 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (56.3 per cent), Kerala (55.2 per cent), Karnataka (51.6 per cent) and Chhattisgarh (51.4 per cent). The all-India number is 44.4 per cent. These seven states elect 235 members to the Lok Sabha.

About 54 per cent or over 9 crore households were agricultural.

Agricultural households

The break up in the 9.3 crore agricultural households is 45.8 per cent OBCs; 15.9 per cent SCs; 14.2 per cent STs and 24.1 per cent from other social groups. The survey also revealed the average income of the agricultural households in the year. The national average income stands at Rs 10,218 during the agricultural year of 2018-19(July to June).

The figure is lower for OBC households, Rs 9,977, and Rs 8,142 and Rs 8,979 for SC and ST households respectively. On the OBC category, the northern state of Uttrakhand topped the table with an average income up to Rs 22,384 and Odisha was the lowest with Rs 5,009.

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