Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011

The Ministry of Rural Development Government of India commenced the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011, in June 2011 through a comprehensive door to door enumeration across the country. This is the first time such a comprehensive exercise has been carried out for both rural and urban India. It is also expected to generate information on a large number of social and economic indicators relating to households across the country.

Objectives of SECC 2011

The SECC, 2011 had the following three objectives:

  • To enable households to be ranked based on their Socio- Economic status. State Governments can then prepare a list of families living below the poverty line
  • To make available authentic information that will enable caste-wise population enumeration of the country
  • To make available authentic information regarding the socio-economic condition, and education status of various castes and sections of the population

Highlights of the Report:

  • There are 24.39 crore (243.9 million) households in India, of which 17.91 (179.1 million) crore live in villages. Of these, 10.69 crore households are considered as deprived.
  • 5.37 crore (29.97%) households in rural areas are “landless deriving a major part of their income from manual labour”.
  • As many as 2.37 crore (13.25%) families in villages live in houses of one room with ‘kachcha’ (impermanent) walls and roof.
  • 21.53%, or 3.86 crore, families living in villages belong to SC/ST categories.
  • 56% of India’s rural households lack agricultural land.
  • 36% of 884 million people in rural India are non-literate. This is higher than the 32% recorded by 2011 Census of India.
  • Of the 64% literate rural Indians, more than a fifth have not completed primary school.
  • 60% of the 17.91 crore rural households are deprived or poor.
  • 35% of urban Indian households qualify as poor.
  • 74.5% (13.34 crore) of rural households survive on a monthly income of Rs 5,000 for their highest earner.
  • 5.4% of rural India has completed high school.
  • 3.4% of rural households have a family member who is a graduate.
  • 4.6% of all rural households in India pay income tax.
  • 14% of rural households are employed either with the government or the private sector.
  • 1,80,657 households are engaged in manual scavenging for a livelihood. Maharashtra, with 63,713, tops the list of the largest number of manual scavenger households, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura and Karnataka.
  • Over 48% of the Indian rural population is female.
  • 44.72 crore are Indians are non-literate, more than a third of its 121.08 crore population.
  • Transgender people comprise 0.1% of India’s rural population. The Andaman and Nicobar islands, West Bengal, Gujarat, Odisha and Mizoram have the highest proportions of transgender people.
  • The military and the para-military were kept out of the SECC.

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