Nearly half the rural households were under deprivation in 2011

Of the 243.9 mn households in the country in 2011, 73%, or 179.1 mn, were in rural areas

A little less than half the rural households were under deprivation of various sorts in 2011, showed data from the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011, released on Friday. This comes after about 80 years of the first caste census conducted in British India. The data pertains only to rural areas and does not include that on caste, except Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST), something that might evoke sharp criticism from political parties ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections.

Of the 243.9 million households in the country in 2011, 73 per cent, or 179.1 million, were in rural areas. Of these, 86.9 million, accounting for 48.52 per cent of the rural households, faced deprivation.

Since the data will be used for various government programmes, it is worthwhile to consider this deprivation in the light of an earlier poverty ratio by the erstwhile Planning Commission. After much criticism of the commission’s poverty data, the government had appointed a panel under C Rangarajan, former chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, to take a fresh look at the numbers. The panel found in 2011-12, 30.9 per cent of the rural population was poor. Previous estimates, by a panel led by Suresh Tendulkar, had pegged the number at 25.7 per cent.

In a way, the census might help the NITI Aayog avoid the controversies surrounding its predecessor, the Planning Commission.

The segment shown under deprivation by the SECC is quite smaller than the target of 75 per cent to be covered by the National Food Security Act.

Releasing the census data on Friday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, “It’s after seven-eight decades that we have this document, after the 1932 caste census...It’s going to be a very important document for all policymakers, both at the central and state government levels...this document will help us target groups for support in terms of policy planning.”

Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birendra Singh said the data “addresses the multi-dimensionality of poverty and provides a unique opportunity for convergent, evidence-based planning, with gram panchayats as units”.

The SECC 2011, the first paperless census conducted on hand-held electronic devices by the government, showed 70.5 million, or 39.39 per cent of the rural households, weren’t deprived, as these qualified on at least one of the 14 parameters considered for non-deprivation. These parameters included owing a motorised fishing boat, two-, three-, or four-wheelers, four-wheeler agricultural equipment, a kisan credit card with a credit limit of Rs 50,000, a member in a government service, a member earning more than Rs 10,000 a month and a member paying income tax.

A total of 1.65 million households were automatically included in the deprived segment, as these did not have shelter, were living on alms, belonged to manual-scavenger families, came from primitive tribal families and legally released bonded labour.

Based on these parameters, 106.9 million households were considered to check whether these came under the deprivation segment. Of these, 20 million were excluded.

Noted economist Amitabh Kundu said, “The whole SECC is directed to identify deprivation. Never before has such an attempt been made to do a census with a clear objective; the National Sample Survey, etc, did not attempt to do this. This data open up a lot of possibilities. These give states an option to pick and choose the indicators according to their requirement, as also for different departments and the Centre’s welfare programmes.”

He said the process of collection eliminated the possibility of leaving people out, but there could be some legal issues when it was used to determine eligibility for government doles.

The biggest source of income was manual casual labour; as many as 51.14 per cent of rural households came under this category.

In absolute number, this stood at 91.6 million households.

A total of 14.01 per cent of households in rural areas, or 25 million households, depended on jobs in the government and private sectors.

The remaining banked on part-time or full-time domestic service (2.5 per cent), rag picking (0.23 per cent), own non-agricultural enterprise (1.61 per cent) and begging (0.37 per cent).

The data showed 23.52 per cent of rural households had no literate adult aged more than 25, indicating the poor state of education among rural masses.

The census, carried out across 640 districts, also showed there were 38.6 million SC and ST households, accounting for 21.53 per cent of all households in rural areas.

The census didn't give any break-up of castes. Brushing aside suggestions that the government avoided giving such data in the survey report due to political reasons ahead of the Bihar Assembly polls, Birendra Singh said, "There is no such thing. Connecting it with elections is not good."

Pressed, the minister said, "This is the jurisdiction of the DG Census. It is for him to decide what he thinks about it. This is entirely in the domain of the DG. Only he can comment on it…only he can satisfy your queries."

He said his ministry was only concerned with data regarding economic backwardness. "We are concerned with economic data so that we can implement our programmes knowing who need to be brought forward today."

STATE OF AFFAIRS

• 68.25% of rural households in India own a mobile phone
   
• 11.04% own a refrigerator
   
• 4.58% of rural households pay income tax
   
• 51.14% of households get their income from manual casual labour
   
• 0.37%  of rural households engaged in begging or charity; 0.23% dependent on rag picking
   
• 30.10%  of rural households depend on cultivation

STILL ON THE EDGE

• 179.1 Rural
• 70.5 Excluded from deprivation
• 0.16 Automatically included in deprivation because of abject conditions
• 106.9 Considered for deprivation
• 20 Reported not  to be deprived
• 86.9 Under deprivation
• 243.9 Total

Figures represent households in million
Source: Socio Economic Caste Census-2011