Releasing the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 here on Friday, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, “It measures the progress that households have made…the improvement in their quality of life. It will reflect the reality of India.”
Though the SECC 2011 included data on caste, particularly the Other Backward Classes, the government has not released that section of the census. “The detailed caste-based data has not yet been released. However, Parliament has asked for this data, and so it will be placed before them at some point. At that point, it will be made public," said National Statistical Commission Chairman Pronab Sen. The decision to include data that will record the strength of the OBC population was a controversial one as it has political implications: the OBCs believe that it will strengthen their case, for instance, for quotas.
Among the major findings of the census are that manual casual labour is the main source of income for 51 per cent of rural households and in 74.5 per cent the income of the highest earning member was less than Rs 5,000 per month. Over 90% of rural households had no members with a salaried job and more than half did not own land.
