Around 73 per cent of households in India are rural, according to the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) data released by the government on Friday. Of these, 18.5 per cent and scheduled caste households and 11 per cent belong to the scheduled tribe category.
The SECC, jointly released by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Rural Development, Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Minister Chaudhary Birendra Singh, also shows that the bulk of India’s rural households subsist on very low incomes. According to the data, 74.5% of rural households have an income of the highest earning member below Rs. 5000 per month. Only 8.3% of rural households have an income of the highest earning member above Rs. 10,000 per month.
Only the provisional data pertaining to rural India was released on Friday. The Census also provides data on households regarding various aspects of their socio-economic status-housing, land-holding/landlessness, educational status, status of women, the differently-abled, occupation, possession of assets, SC/ST households, incomes, etc.
The data also shows the hand-to-mouth existence of large parts of rural India. For example, over 50 per cent of rural households get the bulk of their incomes from manual casual labour and 56 per cent do not own any land.
