The Centre on Tuesday dismissed criticisms that the caste census report was not released to “hide truth” and said that more than 8.19 crore errors were detected in the data of which 1.45 crore faults continue to exist. The Centre has thus informed the States and Union Territories about the errors found and asked them to rectify these.
“The Government reviewed the status of the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) on July 16, 2015. It emerged that 46,73,034 distinct caste names have been returned in the SECC. These include Caste/sub-Caste names, synonyms, surnames, clan/gothra names, phonetic variations, sections, sub-groups etc. These will have to be classified by experts having domain knowledge on these issues.
“Besides, it noted that as far as the Caste particulars were concerned, 8,19,58,314 errors found in the Caste returns had been communicated to the States/UTs for rectification. The States have been making efforts to rectify the errors and had rectified 6,73,81,119 errors. However, 1,45,77,195 errors are yet to be rectified. For example, Maharashtra (69.1 lakhs), Madhya Pradesh (13.9 lakhs), West Bengal (11.6 lakhs), Rajasthan (7.2 lakhs), Uttar Pradesh (5.4 lakhs), Karnataka (2.9 lakhs), Bihar (1.7 lakhs), Tamil Nadu (1.4 lakhs) and all other States and Union Territories still have errors to be rectified,” said the communiqué issued by Union Home Ministry.
On July 3, the Government refrained from releasing the caste-based data in its first SECC released in eight decades.
Union Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh had brushed aside suggestions that the Government avoided giving the caste count in the survey report due to political reasons ahead of Bihar polls. “There is no such thing. Connecting it with elections is not good,” he had said.
However, Opposition parties alleged that the Government was “hiding the truth from the country” by not releasing the data of SCs, STs, Backward Classes, Minority and Upper Class in the country so as to “minimise the quota for reserved classes cleverly in future”.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the formation of an Expert Group to classify and categorise the Caste returns under the Chairmanship of Arvind Panagariya, Vice Chairperson, NITI AAYOG. The members of the Expert Group would be finalised by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in consultation with the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. Further, the Expert Group will be serviced by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs.