Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 | |
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Country | India |
Prime Minister(s) | Narendra Damodardas Modi |
Ministry | Ministry of Rural Development |
Launched | Sankhola village of Hazemara block in West Tripura district |
Status: Unknown |
The Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 (SECC) was conducted for the 2011 Census of India. The Manmohan Singh government approved the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 to be carried out after discussion in both houses of Parliament in 2010. The SECC 2011 was conducted in all states and union terriotories of India and the first findings were revealed on 3 July 2015 by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. SECC 2011 is also the first paperless census in India conducted on hand-held electronic devices by the government in 640 districts. The rural development ministry has taken a decision to use the SECC data in all its programmes such as MGNREGA, National Food Security Act, and the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana. SECC 2011 was the first-ever caste-based census since 1931 Census of India, and it was launched on 29 June 2011 from the Sankhola village of Hazemara block in West Tripura district.
Both major political parties, the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party had differences within the party over caste-based census. Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj supported the idea of caste-based census, while then Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram was against it citing practical difficulties in counting caste while conducting the census. SECC 2011 data will also be used to identify beneficiaries and expand the direct benefit transfer scheme as part of its plans to build upon the JAM (Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana-Aadhaar-Mobile Governance) trinity. SECC 2011 also counted other aspects like Manual scavenging and Transgender count in India. SECC 2011 was not conducted under 1948 Census of India Act, which in turn made information disclosure voluntary for citizens, and not a mandatory disclosure. Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 was the fourth exercise conducted by Government of India to identify households living below the poverty line (BPL) in India that would get various entitlements, after three censuses in 1992, 1997 and 2002. The last BPL census was conducted in India in 2002 and the procedure adopted was to collect information on 13 indicators for every rural household and assign a mark for each of these. The first caste census was conducted in India in 1881. In January 2017, Central Government accepted recommendations to use Socio-Economic Caste Census, instead of poverty line, as the main instrument for identification of beneficiaries and transferring of funds for social schemes in rural areas.