The Government on Friday released the provisional data for rural India from the first Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC). The Government data focused mainly on the social and economic conditions of rural India and did not touch upon the controversial caste factor ahead of the forthcoming BiharState Assembly elections. Highlighting the alarming levels of deprivation and poverty in rural India, the data revealed that out of the total 17.91 crore rural households in India, 10.69 crore live in deprivation.
Deprivation parameters include people living in kuccha houses (2.37 crore, 13.25 per cent), having no adult members between the age of 18-59 (65.15 lakh, 3.64 per cent), households headed by women with no male member between the 16-59 age group (68.96 lakh, 3.85 per cent), landless households deriving major part of their income from manual labour (5.37 crore, 29.97 per cent).
In fact, despite the rural economy being largely agriculture-based, cultivation was the main source of income for only 5.39 crore (30.10 per cent) of the households and casual manual labour was found to be the main source of rural household income, comprising 9.16 crores (51.14 per cent). About 56 per cent households, mainly the Scheduled Caste (SC), in villages do not own land. And, 40 per cent of the total rural land is unirrigated.
There is so much poverty in villages that only 4.6 per cent rural households pay Income-Tax as the average household income was found to be less than Rs5,000 per month for 74.49 per cent of the people.
Of total rural households, 29.4 per cent belong to the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) category. Punjab has the highest number of SC population (36.7 per cent), followed by West Bengal (28.45 per cent), Tamil Nadu (25.55 per cent) and Himachal Pradesh (23.97 per cent) while Mizoram has the highest percentage of ST population (98.79 per cent), followed by lakshadweep (96.59 per cent), Nagaland (93.91 per cent) and Meghalaya (90.36 per cent).
Of the 3.31 crore SC households surveyed, the highest earning member’s income for about 83 per cent households was less than Rs5,000. Of the 1.96 crore ST households surveyed, 87 per cent said their highest earning member’s income was less than Rs5,000 and only 4.48 per centhave a member earning more than Rs10,000.
Uttar Pradesh tops the list of States with the highest mobile penetration in rural areas, while Naxal-affected Chhattisgarh was at the bottom. In UP, 86.63 per cent households have mobile handsets, while Chhattisgarh has just 28.47 per cent. The average mobile penetration in the country is 68.35 per cent. Uttarakhand has the second-highest mobile penetration (86.6 per cent) followed by Sikkim (84.9 per cent). On the other hand, Odisha is ranked second-lowest in terms of mobile penetration with only 33.56 per cent of households owning the gadget.
As far as possession of white goods is concerned, only 11.04 per cent rural households own refrigerators. Goa with 69.37 per cent tops the list followed by Punjab with 66.43 per cent households owning refrigerators. Bihar has the lowest number of refrigerators as only 2.61 per cent households own a fridge followed by Chhattisgarh with 3.3 per cent.
With regard to vehicles, it was revealed that only 20.69 per cent households in India have any kind of automobile. Goa leads with 65.85 per cent households owing any kind of vehicle followed by Punjab at 51.16 per cent and Arunachal Pradesh at 41.46 per cent.
Overall, 0.1 per cent of rural households were engaged in manual scavenging despite a national ban on it, 35.73 per cent were illiterate. The percentage of graduates and those who had pursued higher studies was as low as 3.45 per cent.
When asked by reporters why the Government had held back caste-based data from the Census which was conducted after much political debate during the UPA Government’s regime in 2011, Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh brushed the issue aside and said the Government was more concerned with the economic data as it would help in effective implementation of its programmes and connecting the matter with elections was not appropriate.
Talking about the Census, the Minister said: “Criteria for determining who falls Below Poverty line has changed. Now it is the data given on the basis of the survey done by the SECC on which we have to function. I can say it is a very transparent and authentic data which other Ministries will also benefit from.” He added that the Rural Development Ministry will move forward with the current survey’s data on delivery of its schemes like MNREGA, poverty alleviation etc.