Socio-Economic & Caste Census: One in Three Households in Poverty

Arun Jaitley, the Union Finance Minister said, the government will use this data to curb poverty.

The government has released its Socio-economic and Caste Census on Friday.Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birendra Singh had laid out the findings of the census report.

– Just 4.6% of all rural households in the country pay income tax while such households with salaried income are close to 10%.

– The survey carried out in all 640 districts of the country, pegged rural households at 17.91 crore. The total households in the country including rural and urban stand at 24.39 crore.

– Of all the rural households, 7.05 crore (39.39%), was termed as ‘Excluded Households’ which did not have an income of over Rs 10,000 per month, and did not own either an automobile, fishing boat or kisan credit card.

– While 5.39 crore (30.10%) out of total rural households depended on crop cultivation, 9.16 crore (51.14%) earned income through manual casual labour.

– Around 44.84 lakh worked as domestic helps, 4.08 lakh were rag pickers and 6.68 lakh beggars.

– 94% of the rural households owned a house with 54% having 1-2 room dwellings.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley along with Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birendra Singh laid out the benefits that the government will have with the information provided by the census report.

– The data will help in better targeting of government policies and will form a basis for helping the government target groups for support in terms of policy planning.

– It addresses the multi dimensionality of poverty and provides a unique opportunity for a convergent, evidence based planning with a Gram Panchayat as unit.

– The document will reflect the reality of India and be a very important input for all policymakers both for the central and state governments.

This is the first Census released after 1932 and includes various details with regard to specific regions, communities, caste and economic groups and measures the progress of the households in India.

(With inputs from PTI)