An official statement said that the Ministry of Rural Development, in consultation with states, is trying to implement a convergent, integrated poverty reduction plan with Gram Panchayats and deprived households as priority
The government has released a Socio Economic and Caste census today, a first in eight decades. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, while releasing the census said that this document will help the government target its policies in a better way.
The census states that only 4.6% of all rural households in the country pay income tax, while such households with salaried income are close to 10%. The percentage of Scheduled Caste (SC) households paying income tax was 3.49%, while Scheduled Tribe (ST) tax-paying rural households were mere 3.34%, the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 said.
"The enormity of schemes and reaches that all governments have, this document will form a basis of helping us target groups for support in terms of policy planning," he told reporters here.
He said 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 contains various details with regard to specific regions, communities, caste and economic groups, and measures the progress of the households in India.
"It is after 7-8 decades that we have this document after 1932 of the caste census. It is also a document which contains various details ... who are the ones who have qualitatively moved up in terms of life, which are the ones both, in terms of geographical regions, social groupings, which in future planning needs to be targeted," Jaitley said.
The census survey, which was carried out in all the 640 districts of the country, pegged rural households at 17.91 crore. The total households in the country -- rural plus urban -- stand at 24.39 crore.
Of all the rural households, 7.05 crore, or 39.39%, were termed 'Excluded Households' which did not have an income of over Rs 10,000 per month, or did not own either an automobile, fishing boat or a kisan credit card.
While 5.39 crore (30.10%) out of total rural households depended on crop cultivation for sustenance, 9.16 crore (51.14%) earned income through manual casual labour. Some 44.84 lakh worked as domestic helps, 4.08 lakh were rag pickers and 6.68 lakh beggars.
"The data addresses the multi dimensionality of poverty and provides a unique opportunity for a convergent, evidence based planning with a Gram Panchayat as unit," Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birendra Singh said.
Of all the rural salaried households, 5% earned salaries from the government while those employed in the private sector constituted 3.57% of the total households. Public sector-employed households made up 1.11% of the total.
The census said 94% of the rural households owned a house with 54% having 1-2 room dwellings.
Landless ownership was 56% of the total rural population, with 70% of SCs and 50% of STs being landless owners.
As many as 39% of the rural households are classified by the census as automatically excluded and 48.50% meeting one or the more deprivation criteria.
Over 11% rural households possessed refrigerators and 20.69% had either an automobile or a fishing boat.
"The Ministry of Rural Development, in consultation with states, is trying to implement a convergent, integrated poverty reduction plan with Gram Panchayats and deprived households as priority," an official statement said.
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