The document summarizes key details from the Socio Economic & Caste Census (SECC) of rural India conducted in 2011. The SECC was conducted by the Ministry of Rural Development and Planning Commission, not the Census Commissioner. It aimed to identify families below the poverty line, conduct caste-wise enumeration, and assess socioeconomic conditions. The methodology involved automatically excluding households with assets above a threshold, automatically including vulnerable households, and ranking the remaining based on 7 deprivation factors. Key findings included that 48.5% of households were deprived, 71% of SC and 74% of ST households were deprived, and 51% of rural households depend on manual casual labor for livelihood. The document also notes some shortcomings of the

1. Socio Economic & Caste Census, 2011
in Rural India.
एक नजर में....
By Sachindra Kumar & Shakti Singh Arya
M.A. RDG, TISS Hyderabad

2. Who Conducted SECC, 2011?
• SECC was not conducted under the Census of India Act, 1948. Why ?
• So that is why SECC was conducted by Ministry of Rural Development &
Planning Commission and not by the Census Commissioner (Home
Ministry).

3. What is SECC ? & Why it was needed?
The SECC, 2011 has the following three objectives:
1. Preparing a list of families living below the poverty line.
2. caste-wise population enumeration of the country.
3. Identification of the socioeconomic condition, and education status of
various castes and sections of the population

4. Usefulness of SECC
Evaluation of current schemes based on the new data available.
Better policy making based on the new poverty estimates across
different social groups.
Population of OBCs was not clearly known at the time of Mandal
Commission recommendations. New data will clarify the doubts.

5. Methodology ? For Rural Households
• It is a three part approach.
• Automatically Excluded
• Automatically Included
• Ranking of remaining households based on 7 deprivation factors.

6. Automatically Excluded Households
Households owning any of the following are excluded:
• Vehicle
• Kisan Credit Card with limit of 50,000 and above.
• Govt. employee in the house
• Any member earning more than 10,000 per month.
• Paying Income/professional tax.
• Three or more rooms with all rooms having pucca walls and roof
• Own a refrigerator Or A landline phone.
• Own irrigated land above 2.5 acres.

7. Automatically Included Households
• Households without Shelter
• Destitute/ Living on alms (offerings).
• Manual Scavengers
• Legally Released Bonded Labourers.
• Primitive Tribal Groups

8. 7 deprivation indicators:
• Households with only one room, kucha walls and kucha roof
• No adult member between the ages of 16 and 59
• Female headed households with no adult male member between 16
• and 59
• Households with disabled member and no able bodied adult member
• SC/ST households
• Households with no literate adult above 25 years
• Landless households deriving a major part of their income from
• manual casual labour

10. Some Basic Stats
• Total Household in the Country = 24.39 Crore
• Total Rural Household = 17.91 Crore (73.4%)
• Average Household Size= 4.93
• SC household= 18.46 % , ST household= 10.97 %

11. • 39
• Based on the exclusion criteria, 39% households have been excluded.
• This implies that those who have received laptops under different
schemes by UP and TN Govts. are not poor anymore.
• In Punjab: Dalit accounts for 36.74% of population. And hardly own any
land. But they are also excluded since they own a
vehicle/phone/refrigerator.

12. Approx. 1 % have been included in the list of poor households based on
inclusion criteria.
Therefore, deprivation criteria is applied on the remaining 60 % of
households that is 10.69 Crore households.

13. Automatically Excluded, included and remaining
Auto. Excluded, 39, 39%
Auto. Included, 0.91, 1%
Remaining, 60.9, 60%
3 STEP APPROACH

14. • It means out of the 7 deprivation indicators,
if a person lags in at least one of them is
considered poor (provided s/he is not excluded).
• Out of 10.69 Crore households considered for
deprivation 8.69 Crore reported deprivation.
• Thus in total 48.50 % Households are deprived.
• 71% SC and 74 % ST households are deprived.
48.5
71.9 74
56.14
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Total SC ST WH
% of Deprived Households
Deprivation Status

15. 67.28• , 18.36 51.32, 37.92
• Only 30% Rural Households are dependent on agriculture as MSOI.
• 51% derive their livelihood from manual casual labour.
• 67.27% Rural Dalit family reported MCL as their primary source.

16. • 56.25% rural household own no Agricultural land
• State like WB, Bihar, AP, and TN have landlessness ratio between 65 to
73%

17. Gender Analysis of Households
• Third Gender in the form of ‘Transgender’ has been reported.
• Households who have reported transgender are 74286 in the whole
country in rural areas. U.P. Accounts for 12916 whereas, Sikkim for
only 1.
• Data available on Widow, separated and divorced. For e.g. there are
3.46 % women who are widow in Rural India.
• Women headed households (A new deprivation indicator) = 12.83 %

18. Status of Education
• Total Illiterate 35.73 %, Rajasthan tops the list with 47.58 %, followed
by M.P., Bihar, Telangana (44, 43, and 40 % respectively).
• Surprisingly Kerala has 11.38 % population illiterate in rural areas.
• Only 9.57 % are matric pass in rural India. Sen. Sec. it’s 5.41% and
Graduate and above are 3.45 %.
• 23.52 % Household with no literate adult above 25 years of age.

19. What about Phones ?
• Households without any phone = 28%
• Households Owns mobile only = 68.35%
• Overall 1% households have a landline phone, in Chhattisgarh merely
0.15% households own a landline phone.

20. Vehicle, Refrigerator (Assets)
• Households having motorized two/three/four wheelers and fishing
boats are only 21 %.
• Overall 11 % households own a refrigerator, In Bihar only 2.61 %
households have a refrigerator. Followed by Chhattisgarh (3.3%) and
Madhya Pradesh (4%).

21. Some more interesting findings:
• First time in the History Agricultural workforce declined from 259 to
228 million between 2004-05 and 2011-2012.
• Monthly income of highest earning household member is < 5000,
(74.49 % )
• 4-5 % rural households pay income/professional tax
• Number of Manual Scavenger in rural India 186957

22. Shortcomings/ Drawbacks of SECC ?
• Basic amenities like a telephone connection, motorized two wheeler
possession is considered a luxury. (Exclusion Criteria)
• SECC’s deprivation parameters do not consider food
consumption/calorie intake. So the whole Malnutrition angle (of
women and children) is missing. Similarly expenditure on health is also
not considered.
• Information of caste details may be misused, for more caste politics

23. Thank You
For further queries log on to www.secc.gov.in
Or Email to shaktisingharya@gmail.com