[rights issue] socio economic caste census (secc) 2011...

10/14/13 Mrunal » [Rights Issue] Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011: Purpose, Benefits, Features, Deprivation index » Print

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[Rights Issue] Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011: Purpose,Benefits, Features, Deprivation index

1. SECC-2011: WHY needed?

2. Census Difference: Regular vs SECC

3. Confidential?

4. BPL: SECC vs Planning Commission

5. Poverty: UN Definition

6. Poverty Line: India

7. Tendulkar

8. SECC-Players involved

9. Procedure

10. Data collection

11. SECC: Methodology

#1: Automatically Excluded

#2: Automatically Included

#3: Deprivation indicator

12. 7 deprivation indicators:

13. Followup

14. SECC Advantages?

15. SECC: Criticism

16. Mock Questions

SECC-2011: WHY needed?

#1: Beneficiary identification

Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011 ranks thehouseholds based on their socio-economic status.(=adatabase is created)State Governments can use this database to preparethe list of families living below poverty line (BPL).(Combined with UID) This database can be utilized foridentification of beneficiaries for various socio-economic welfare schemes.

#2: Policy Making

SECC census database will provide authentic

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information to policy makers about caste-wisepopulation breakup in the country (e.g. socio-economic, educational status of a particular caste.)Based on that, Government can evaluate theperformance of its past schemes/policies and updatethem accordingly.

Census Difference: Regular vs SECC

Census= A periodic count of the population.

Regularpopulationcensus 2011

Socio Economic CasteCensus (SECC) 2011

Apexorganization

CensusCommissioner(HomeMinistry)

RurulDevelopmentministry +PlanningCommission.

Time

Conductedevery 10 year.Last censuswas done in2011 and datacollection isfinished.

First time startedin 2011 itself.But as of March2013, Manipur,West Bengal,Jharkhand, UttarPradesh, Biharand Lakshadweepare yet to finishthe datacollection forSECC census 2011.

Act?carried undercensus of Indiaact 1948

Not carried under thatAct.

PersonalDataconfidential

yesNo. (more explainedbelow).

Purpose?

Provide generaldemographicinformation: age,gender, religion,

help preparing BPLlist and identifyingbeneficiaries for



occupation,migration etc.

welfare schemes.

Motto?Our Census, Ourfuture

Our Census, UPSCaspirant’s tension

Confidential?

The regular Population Census is Carried out underCensus Act, 1948.According to this Act, Government must keepindividual’s personal information confidential.For example religion of Sonia/Rahul Gandhi.Besides aim of regular Population Census = provideoverview, it is not concerned with any particularindividual / household.In short personal data given in Population census=confidential.

Now speaking of Socio Economic Caste Census(SECC).All the personal information given in SECC, will beput in public display (in Gram Sabha) exceptcaste/tribe/religion details.State Governments will also use this personal data toidentify beneficiaries for food/pension /other welfareschemes and for preparing BPL list.In future Data could be used to update individual’sdetail in NPR, UID.In short, the data given in SECC census= NOTconfidential. That’s why, Government is not carryingout SECC under Census Act, 1948.

BPL: SECC vs Planning Commission

Planning Commission SECC

How many BPL? (=number)Which individual isBPL? (=name)

for example, the PlanningCommission estimate for a Statecould be that say 55% of the ruralpopulation and say 30%of theurban population is living belowthe poverty line.

SECC, 2011 willenable thatparticular State toidentify thehouseholds whocomprise this 55%and 30% respectively.



Poverty: UN Definition

According to United Nations (UN) poverty meansfollowing

Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices andopportunities, a violation of human dignity.It means lack of basic capacity to participateeffectively in society.It means not having enough to feed and clothe afamily, not having a school or clinic to go to, nothaving the land on which to grow one’s food or a jobto earn one’s living, not having access to credit.It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion ofindividuals, households and communities.It means susceptibility to violence, andit often implies living in marginal or fragileenvironments, without access to clean water orsanitation

Poverty Line: India

Poverty line helps identifying the weaker, vulnerablesections of the society who cannot meet even theirminimum food requirement [measured in terms ofcalorific intake].This line also decides the beneficiaries for government programs like Targeted PDS, IndiraAwas Yojana, food security entitlements etc., whichdepend on poverty line standards and hence getshuge public attention.But Every time we try to fix this line there is a conflictof interest between the people and state because:Ruling party (@union and State level) would want toshow that every year % percentage of populationliving below poverty is decreasing otherwiseopposition parties will start shouting “poverty isincreasing under this regime.”Similarly international arena, Government would notwant to make India look like a failed state in terms ofpoverty removal.So Governments always want less people fall Belowpoverty line)

Tendulkar



Last year a big controversy erupted when the planningcommission said, “we’ve accepted the TendulkarCommittee report, according to which poverty line isfollowing:

Area Person earning lessthan Rs. ** per day

Urban 32

Rural 26

But due to public uproar later Government and planningCommission had to clarify that we are is not going to usethis line to identify beneficiaries for governmentprograms and only the figures given by SECC to beconsidered.

SECC-Players involved

1. Ministry of Rural Development2. Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation3. Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India4. State Governments5. Each Collector/District Magistrate6. Enumerators + Data entry operators.

Procedure

For SECC Census, Union Government will provide cash+ technical help.State Government machinery will do the datacollection.District magistrate/collector will be responsible foroverall SECC census in his district.State Government will appoint Enumerators to visithouses and do the survey.The primary school teachers will not be used asEnumerators for this purpose due to the ban imposedby the Right to Education Act, 2009.

Data collection

Two men team: 1 Enumerator (to ask questions) + 1Data Entry operator (to record data in Tablet PC)They visit households.They will also reach out to homeless populations (eg.people living in railway stations, roadsides etc)



SECC: Methodology

It uses separate methodology for surveying rural andurban households.

Area Methodology basedon ** Committee

Rural Saxena

Urban Hashim

now let’s check the methodology adopted for surveyingrural households : it is a three part approach

SECC for Rural Households

1. Automatically Exclude some households (based onincome/assets)

2. Automatically Include some household3. For the remaining houses: rank them based on seven

deprivation factors.

#1: Automatically Excluded

If a household own any of these items: they’ll beexcluded. (list not exhaustive)

1. Vehicle2. Kisan Credit Card with credit limit of Rs. 50k and

above3. Any member is Government employee4. Any member is earning more than Rs.10k per month.5. Paying income tax6. Paying professional tax7. House has pucca walls and roof + Three or more

rooms8. Own a refrigerator9. Own Landline phone

10. Owns irrigated land above a limit.

#2: Automatically Included

household with any of the following will be includedautomatically:

1. Households without shelter2. Destitute/ living on alms



3. Manual scavengers4. Legally released bonded labourers5. Primitive tribal groups

What is Primitive tribal groups (PTG)?

There are the poorest of poor amongst the ScheduledTribes (STs). They’re identified based on threeparameters

1. They use pre-agricultural level of technology forfarming.

2. Very low level of literacy3. They population is either Declining or stagnant.

#3: Deprivation indicator

So far we know that

1. SECC-2011 census aims to rank households.2. It automatically includes/excludes certain

households (as seen above)3. Now for the remaining households (which are not

automatically included or excluded) the census willrank them based on 7 Deprivation Indicators.

7 deprivation indicators:

1. Households with only one room, kucha walls andkucha roof

2. No adult member between the ages of 16 and 593. Female headed households with no adult male

member between 16 and 594. Households with disabled member and no able

bodied adult member5. SC/ST household6. Households with no literate adult above 25 years7. Landless households deriving a major part of their

income from manual casual labour

Households with the highest deprivation score will

1. Be first included in the BPL list.2. Be first given benefit of Government welfare

schemes.



ok so ^this was the methodology for doing SECC census inRural area. Now speaking of methodology for Urbanareas.

SECC urban area

It is a similar a three stage process to identify the urbanpoor – automatic exclusion, automatic inclusion and ascoring index. A family stands to be automaticallyexcluded if it has either a four room house or possess anyone of the asset (four wheeler, AC set, laptop) or any threeof the following assets (fridge, landline phone, washingmachine or a two wheeler.)

Followup

Once the survey is complete in all States and unionterritories, the database will be given to Abhijit SenCommittee.Abhijit Sen Committee will analyse this data andcome up with the exclusion criteria for Governmentwelfare schemes. (particularly food security andpension) (e.g. if you earn xx rupees and own xx assetsthen you are not eligible for xyz welfare schemes.)Earlier Mihir Shah task force has said whoever iscovered under food security, should automatically becovered under pension benefit (National Socialassistant program)So at the moment, immediate plan of Government isSECC-2011–>> use data to identify beneficiaries forFood + Pension.

SECC Advantages?

#1: Paperless



Survey is carried by 2 men team (Enumerator + Dataentry operator).Data entry operator is given a tablet PC.When Data entry operator is entering data in the tablePC, he’ll also see the scanned form of NationalPopulation register (NPR)= it means he can crosscheck the information provided by givenhousehold.This will drastically reduce data entryerrors and enumerator discretion.



#2: Transparent

Once data collection is complete, it’ll be given toGram Sabha and put on public display.This will ensure that there is no misreporting.At the higher stage, data will be cross verified at blockand district level officers.

SECC: Criticism

1. In the Table PC, Under sex column: only male/female= Transgender not included.

2. Information of caste details may be misused, formore casteist politics especially when next generalelection is coming soon.

3. Basic amenities like a telephone connection,motorized two wheeler possession is considered aluxury.

4. For Urban area, Any household that has laptop=excluded.

5. But in Tamilnadu, many poor families are given freelaptop, TV etc by State Government. Similarly UPGovernment is also planning to give free laptops. Sopoor people are afraid they’ll loose rank indeprivation index/BPL list. (although now



Government is considering dropping laptop from theexclusion list.)

6. SECC’s deprivation parameters donot consider foodconsumption/calorie intake. So the wholeMalnutrition angle (of women and children) ismissing. Similarly expenditure on health is also notconsidered.

Mock Questions

Q1. Which of the following ministries are involved inSocio-Economic Caste Census 2011?

1. Ministry of social justice and empowerment2. Ministry of Rural development3. Ministry of minority affairs4. Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation

Ans

a. Only 1b. Only 2c. Only 2 and 3d. 2 and 4

Q2. Correct statements about Socio-Economic CasteCensus 2011?

1. Motto is “Our Census, Our future”2. It is being carried under Census of India act 1948.

Ans

a. Only 1b. Only 2c. Only bothd. None.

Mains

GS1

1. True social empowerment cannot be achievedby censuses and schemes. Comment.

2. Discuss the role of state in Socialempowerment.



GS2 3. Write a note on Socio-Economic Caste Censusof 2011.

Essay

1. Poverty and Deprivation2. Caste Politics

Interview

1. If you were given the task of designing a new povertyline, how will you do it?

2. What do you understand by the term deprivation?3. If we’ve to measure deprivation objectively, what

parameters should be looked into? Do you think the 7parameters adopted in SECC census are sufficient?

4. Who or what is responsible for large-scaledeprivation in India?

Ref

1. Major Inputs from Mr. Manikandan Soundararajan2. http://rural.nic.in/sites/BPL-census-2011.asp

3. http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=93133

URL to article: http://mrunal.org/2013/03/rights-issue-socio-economic-caste-census-secc-2011-purpose-benefits-features-deprivation-index.html

Posted By Mrunal On 09/03/2013 @ 14:28 In the categorypolity

http://rural.nic.in/sites/BPL-census-2011.asp

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=93133

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