Socio Economic And Caste Census

2011
SECC-2011 is a study of socio economic status of rural and urban households and allows
ranking of households based on predefined parameters. SECC 2011 has three census
components which were conducted by three separate authorities but under the overall
coordination of Department of Rural Development in the Government of India. Census in
Rural Area has been conducted by the Department of Rural Development (DoRD). Census
in Urban areas is under the administrative jurisdiction of the Ministry of Housing and
Urban Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA). Caste Census is under the administrative control of
Ministry of Home Affairs: Registrar General of India (RGI) and Census Commissioner of
India.
Ministry of Rural Development commenced the Socio-Economic Caste Census-2011 on 29th
June, 2011 through a comprehensive door to door enumeration across the country. The data of
the exercise is now available for policy, research and for implementing various development
programmes. It is therefore necessary that the data is understood with respect to the
questionnaire (Annex-I). The following needs to be consciously taken on record while using
SECC data.
(i) The SECC data is respondent based input along with the counter sign of enumerator.The data
is the "revealed data" by the household to the enumerator. However, collected data also meets
the approval of Gram Sabha and Panchayats.
(ii) The structure of the houses of household is described in SECC as Kuccha or Pucca
depending on the respondent based information on predominant material used in walls and roof
(iii) Ownership status of the house is respondent based information.
(iv) Main source of income related to household has been clarified in rural areas as cultivation,
manual casual labour, part time or full time domestic service, begging, non-agriculture own
enterprise, begging/charity/alms and others. The various components of 'other' have however not
been enumerated.
(v) Some nuances of data needs to be clarified. For instance, "Non-adult member" questionnaire
has used the age group of 16-59 instead of 14-59. Similarly the question on income of the main
earner does not ask logical question on any other earner. Thus, when the household reports less
than Rs. 5000/ month as the income of the main earner the natural second question of any other
earner would have defined poverty status of the house sharply in income term. However, the
approach of SECC is torely on enumerating multidimensionality of poverty and rank households
accordingly for receiving benefits of governments' positive interventions. Thus, even in the
absence of the same, these households can be tracked on multi variable analysis on poverty by

keeping in view the insecurity and uncertainty of wage jobs and insecure, unsafe and poor quality
of households, etc.
(vi) SECC data is compilation of 24 lakhs enumeration blocks where each enumeration block has
roughly 125 households. These are the same enumeration blocks that were formed during
census. This allows SECC data to rank household and categorise them on the basis of socio
economic status using automatic exclusion criteria, automatic inlusion criteria and deprivation
criteria.

Census 2011 and Socio Economic Census

2011
(vii) The data of SECC does not and cannot super impose itself fully on the census data. While
there is a high degree of compatibility in the two sets of data the findings could be different
because the duration of census and that of SECC is different. Census 2011 on the other hand
was conducted during the period 9th to 28th February 2011. Socio Economic Caste Census 2011
was largely carried out in 2011 and 2012 with a few states taking enumeration and verification in
2013 also.
(viii) It is relevant to note that the regular Population Census is carried out under Census Act,
1948. According to this Act, Government must keep individual's personal information
confidential. Besides aim of regular Population Census is to provide overview, it is not concerned
with any particular individual / household. In short personal data given in Population Census is
confidential. On the contrary all the personal information given in the Socio Economic Caste
Census (SECC) is open for use by Government departments to grant and/ or restrict benefits to
households. This required the right of verification of socio economic profile prepared by
enumerators, verifiers and supervisors of state government of households to be shared in
transparent manner with households, Panchayats and Gram Sabha. This entailed mid track
change in process of SECC 2011 which had to introduce in November 2012 a process of
complaints/ objections to be entertained under a pre-defined process after publication of draft
SECC list. Accordingly, all published Draft District Lists were put for public scrutiny before
Panchayat and were displayed in Gram Sabha except names of caste/tribe/religion details.
Complaints / Objections were to be thereafter examined by designated officers within mandated
45-82 days. However, this process resulted in to considerable time over run since more than 1.20
crore households out of 17.91 crore had raised objections which brought time over run of more
than 485 days in certain cases. Now, 99.99 % of COTS have been addressed but yet nearly
43,000 Claims & Objections are required to be uploaded after verification. Since valid information
on 99.70 % households is now available, a distinct credibility is added to the provisional data
which is now open for examination and deriving actionable meanings.
The status of SECC as on 27.06.2015 is as under
i.

Districts Covered

640

ii.

Enumeration Completed

640

iii.

Verification Completed

640

iv.

Draft List Published

628

v.

Final List Published

277

vi.

Final List Published of States

13 States/ UTs

vii.

States Ready to Publish Final List

21 States/UT

-Claims & Objections Invited & Resolved

99.66%

viii.

12

Draft List Awaited

-NCT Delhi

9/9

-Himachal Pradesh

1/12

-Maharashtra

2/ 35

These are the key points of the Census:

In 75 per cent of 17.9 crore households in rural India, the monthly income of
the highest-earning member is less than Rs.5,000
Nearly 40 per cent are landless and work as manual casual labourers
25 per cent of the rural households still do not own a phone
25 per cent rural households have no access to irrigation
Only 8.29 per cent of rural households have a member earning overRs.10,000
per month
10.69 crore rural families, or 60 per cent, qualify for "deprivation"
Of these over 100 million deprived households, 21.5 per cent belong to
scheduled castes or tribes.
This census takes caste into account for the first time in any such exercise
since 193

PIB
Provisional Data of Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 for Rural India
Released
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 socioeconomic 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.

I - Key Findings from Rural India

Total Households in the Country

(Rural plus Urban)

24.39 Crore

Total Rural Households

17.91 Crore

Total Excluded Households (based on fulfilling any of the 14 parameters of

7.05

exclusion i. motorized 2/3/4 wheeler/fishing boat; ii. Mechanized 3 4 wheeler

Crore(39.39%)

agricultural equipment; iii. Kisan credit card with credit limit of over Rs. 50,000/-;
iv. Household member government employee; v. households with nonagricultural enterprises registered with government; vi. Any member of
household earning more than Rs. 10,000 per month; vii. Paying income tax; viii.
Paying professional tax; ix. 3 or more rooms with pucca walls and roof; x. owns
a refrigerator; xi. Owns landline phone; xii. Owns more than 2.5 acres of
irrigated land with 1 irrigation equipment; xiii. 5 acres or more of irrigated land
for two or more crop season; xiv. Owning at least 7.5 acres of land or more with
at least one irrigation equipment. )

Automatically included (based on fulfilling any of the 5 parameters of inclusion

1. Households without shelter; ii. Destitute, living on alms; iii. Manual scavenger

16.50 lakh

families; iv. Primitive tribal groups; v. legally released bonded labour)

0.92%

Households considered for deprivation

10.69 Crore

Households not reporting deprivation

2.00 crore

Households with any one of the 7 deprivation

8.69 Crore

II - Deprivation Data

Households with only one room, kuccha walls and kuccha roof

2.37 Crore
13.25%

No adult member in household between age 18 and 59

65.15 lakh
3.64%

Female headed household with no adult male member between 16 and 59

68.96 Lakh
3.85%

Households with differently able member with no other able bodied adult member

7.16 lakh
0.40%

SC/ST Households

3.86 Crore
21.53%

Households with no literate adult above age 25 years

4.21 Crore

23.52%

Landless households deriving a major part of their income from manual labour

5.37 Crore
29.97%

III - Sources of Household income

Total Rural Households

17.91Crore

Cultivation

5.39 Crore
30.10%

Manual Casual labour

9.16 Crore
51.14%

Part time or full time domestic service

44.84 lakh
2.50%

Rag picking, etc.

4.08 lakh
0.23%

Non Agricultural own account enterprise

28.87 lakh
1.61%

Begging/charity/alms

6.68 lakh
0.37%

Others ( including government service, private service, PSU employment, etc.

2.50 Crore
14.01%

The Ministry of Rural Development has taken a decision to use the SECC data in all its
programmes. SECC data would have meaningful use in Housing for all, Education and Skills
thrust, MGNREGA, National Food Security Act, interventions for differently able, interventions for
women led households, and targeting of households/individual entitlements on evidence of
deprivation, etc. The household data is also available for planners of programmes at State,
district, Block, Gram Panchayat and village level. SECC provides an opportunity to
simultaneously address the multi-dimensionality of poverty by addressing the deprivation of
households in education, skills, housing, employment, health, nutrition, water, sanitation, social
and gender mobilization and entitlement. The use of the NPR TIN Number across programmes
affords an opportunity to track the progress of households over the years. SECC truly makes
evidence based targeted household interventions for poverty reduction possible. It paves the way
for a Mission Antyodaya to work simultaneously in addressing the poverty of households through
a Gram Panchayat Poverty Reduction Plan. The Ministry of Rural Development, in consultation
with States, is trying to implement a convergent, integrated poverty reduction plan with Gram
Panchayats and deprived households as priority.