By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, JULY 03, 2015: THE Finance Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley and the Minister Rural Development, Mr Chaudhary Birendra Singh, today jointly released on-line the provisional data from the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 for Rural India. The management of the Central data base is with the NIC.

SECC 2011 is a unique paperless Census. The enumeration of the data was done using over 6.4 lakh electronic handheld device. Household data was taken from the National Population Register along with the Temporary Identification Number (TIN). At each stage there was an opportunity for transparency and grievance redressal. A total of 1.24 crore claims and objections were received of which 99.7% have already been resolved. Gram Panchayats and Gram Sabhas were involved in this process, besides School Teachers and Data Entry Operators as enumerators. The districts and State Governments have carried out the SECC with the Ministry of Rural Development as the nodal Ministry. Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation carried out the survey in urban areas and the Registrar General, Census of India carried out the caste census.

The provisional socio-economic data for Rural India has been released today. The survey has been completed in all the 640 districts. It is provisional as the final lists are being uploaded in some districts after addressing all the objections received. It is being released as its use in evidence based planning for rural development and poverty reduction needs to be undertaken immediately. It provides very useful data on households regarding various aspects of their socio-economic status – housing, land-holding/landlessness, educational status, status of women, the differently able, occupation, possession of assets, SC/ST households, incomes, etc. SECC provided for automatic exclusion on the basis of 14 parameters, automatic inclusion on the basis of 5 parameters and grading of deprivation on the basis of seven criteria. The data addresses the multi dimensionality of poverty and provides a unique opportunity for a convergent, evidence based planning with a Gram Panchayat as a unit. The data is an opportunity to make evidence based selection, prioritization and targeting of beneficiaries in different programmes.