The Ministry of Rural Development Government of India, commenced the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011, in June 2011 through a comprehensive door to door enumeration across the country. This is the first time such a comprehensive exercise has been carried out for both rural and urban India. It is also expected to generate information on a large number of social and economic indicators relating to households across the country.
The SECC, 2011 has the following three objectives:
- To enable households to be ranked based on their Socio- Economic status. State Governments can then prepare a list of families living below the poverty line
- To make available authentic information that will enable caste-wise population enumeration of the country
- To make available authentic information regarding the socio economic condition, and education status of various castes and sections of the population
The SECC, 2011 will be conducted through a comprehensive programme involving the Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, The Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India and the State Governments. The process is as follows:
- Each Collector/District Magistrate will formulate a District/Town Plan and a Communication Plan
- 24 lakh Enumeration Blocks (EB) will be used for the SECC, 2011- each Enumeration Block has roughly 125 households. These are the same Enumeration Blocks that were formed during the Census 2011. The enumerators will be provided copies of the layout maps and Abridged House List prepared during Census 2011. This will ensure complete coverage of the area.
- Enumerators will be trained to conduct the SECC, 2011
- Each Enumerator will be assigned 4 Enumeration Blocks, and every 6 Enumerators will be assigned to one Supervisor
- Enumerators will visit every household identified in the Enumeration Block and canvas the questionnaire. They will also reach out to homeless populations (eg. people living in railway stations, roadsides etc.
- A data entry operator will accompany each Enumerator
- The data will be captured directly on an electronic handheld device (a tablet PC). The hand held device will have the scanned images of the forms filled up for National Population Register (NPR). This will also ensure complete and accurate coverage
- The information (held in the tablet PC) will be read out to the respondent, who will verify it. A printed acknowledgement slip, signed by the Enumerator and Data Entry Operator will be given to the respondent
- Collected data will be verified in the Panchayat
- After all the information is collected from an Enumeration Block, a draft publication list will be prepared for verification
- Within a week of publication of the draft list, the list will be read out at the Gram Sabha in all rural areas
- Any person can file claims/objections and information furnished before designated officers for this purpose. The draft list will be made available at the Gram Panchayat, Block Development Office, Charge Centre and District Collector’s Offices
- The list will also be uploaded on the NIC/State Government/MoRD/MoHUPA websites. This will aid transparency and increase accountability
Draft Publication: After Enumeration & Supervision phase, a draft publication/list is prepared with all information in the survey questionnaire. Information on the persons /household€™s religion and caste/ tribe name is not published. The lists so printed are being published and placed at the following places
- Panchayat Office
- Another prominent location in the Panchayat
- Office of the BDO.
Draft list is made available in the offices of Gram Panchayat, BDO, Charge Centre and District Collector for perusal by any person interested in it. A person in each of these offices has been designated to facilitate the inspection and also to accept the claims and objection from the public. Claims and objection is accepted if sent by post or courier, if the identity of the complainant is legibly mentioned. Anonymous and bulk complaints are not accepted.
The draft list along with the Information regarding placement of the lists is sent to the District Collectors. A notice regarding the draft publication is printed in the local media/newspaper. Within a week of publication of the draft list, the list is read out in the Gram Sabha. All claims/objections raised in the Gram Sabha meeting are recorded and considered as claims/objection and are disposed off by the designated officer like other claims and objections. The list is also uploaded in the NIC/ State Government/ MoRD/ MoHUPA website with provision to take household-wise print out and lodge claims and objections
Claims and Objections: Claims and objections will be limited to the facts displayed in the list only. Claimant or objector may also support claims with documentary evidence. Forms meant for filing objections to the inclusion of name(s) of person(s) in the published draft list and for corrections/ modifications of entries in the draft list and for filing claims for inclusion, in case of omission, are made available to the applicants free of charge on demand at the centre (i.e. office of the Block Development Officer). An acknowledgement slip, which is available at the bottom of the respective forms, shall be given to all applicants along with details of date, time and place of the hearing of these claims and objections. This date should not exceed 7 days from the date of receipt of forms. For this purpose the State Government will notify officers who will be competent to take a decision on claims and objections. A Summary hearing will be conducted by Officers appointed by the State Government. Records of the summary hearing will be uploaded onto the database through a system provided by BEL. A copy of the order is given to the person concerned. Persons not satisfied with their decision have a right to appeal at the district level. The State Government will appoint officers at the District level competent to take decisions at this level. An acknowledgement slip should be given to the applicant with details of date, time and place of the hearing of these claims and objections. This date should not exceed 7 days of receipt of forms. Period for filing claims and objections would be 21 days from the day of publication of the draft list.
Final List Publication: At the end of the 31st day from the publishing of the draft report, the final lists are being published. The Final List are sent to
- All Panchayats
- All Block Offices
- Other Offices of the State Government that are considered appropriate
The Final List is generated from the MIS only. The final list will also be uploaded in the NIC/ State Government/ MoRD/ MoHUPA website.
Post Final list status: No changes would be allowed in the data for one year following the publication of the Final List. Process for subsequent updation of the information will be communicated separately
This is the public Portal to view SECC Results and published Draft & Final Lists of SECC 2011 programme of Department of Rural Development, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, designed, developed and hosted by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), a premier ICT organization of the Government of India under the aegis of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
SECC-2011 is a study of socio economic status of rural and urban households and allows ranking of households based on predefined parameters. SECC 2011 has three census components which were conducted by three separate authorities but under the overall coordination of Department of Rural Development in the Government of India. Census in Rural Area has been conducted by the Department of Rural Development (DoRD). Census in Urban areas is under the administrative jurisdiction of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA). Caste Census is under the administrative control of Ministry of Home Affairs: Registrar General of India (RGI) and Census Commissioner of India.
Ministry of Rural Development commenced the Socio-Economic Caste Census-2011 on 29th June, 2011 through a comprehensive door to door enumeration across the country. The data of the exercise is now available for policy, research and for implementing various development programmes. It is therefore necessary that the data is understood with respect to the questionnaire (Annex-I). The following needs to be consciously taken on record while using SECC data.
(i) The SECC data is respondent based input along with the counter sign of enumerator.The data is the "revealed data" by the household to the enumerator. However, collected data also meets the approval of Gram Sabha and Panchayats.
(ii) The structure of the houses of household is described in SECC as Kuccha or Pucca depending on the respondent based information on predominant material used in walls and roof
(iii) Ownership status of the house is respondent based information.
(iv) Main source of income related to household has been clarified in rural areas as cultivation, manual casual labour, part time or full time domestic service, begging, non-agriculture own enterprise, begging/charity/alms and others. The various components of 'other' have however not been enumerated.
(v) Some nuances of data needs to be clarified. For instance, "Non-adult member" questionnaire has used the age group of 16-59 instead of 14-59. Similarly the question on income of the main earner does not ask logical question on any other earner. Thus, when the household reports less than Rs. 5000/ month as the income of the main earner the natural second question of any other earner would have defined poverty status of the house sharply in income term. However, the approach of SECC is torely on enumerating multidimensionality of poverty and rank households accordingly for receiving benefits of governments' positive interventions. Thus, even in the absence of the same, these households can be tracked on multi variable analysis on poverty by keeping in view the insecurity and uncertainty of wage jobs and insecure, unsafe and poor quality of households, etc.
(vi) SECC data is compilation of 24 lakhs enumeration blocks where each enumeration block has roughly 125 households. These are the same enumeration blocks that were formed during census. This allows SECC data to rank household and categorise them on the basis of socio economic status using automatic exclusion criteria, automatic inlusion criteria and deprivation criteria.
Census 2011 and Socio Economic Census 2011
(vii) The data of SECC does not and cannot super impose itself fully on the census data. While there is a high degree of compatibility in the two sets of data the findings could be different because the duration of census and that of SECC is different. Census 2011 on the other hand was conducted during the period 9th to 28th February 2011. Socio Economic Caste Census 2011 was largely carried out in 2011 and 2012 with a few states taking enumeration and verification in 2013 also.
(viii) It is relevant to note that the regular Population Census is carried out under Census Act, 1948. According to this Act, Government must keep individual's personal information confidential. Besides aim of regular Population Census is to provide overview, it is not concerned with any particular individual / household. In short personal data given in Population Census is confidential. On the contrary all the personal information given in the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) is open for use by Government departments to grant and/ or restrict benefits to households. This required the right of verification of socio economic profile prepared by enumerators, verifiers and supervisors of state government of households to be shared in transparent manner with households, Panchayats and Gram Sabha. This entailed mid track change in process of SECC 2011 which had to introduce in November 2012 a process of complaints/ objections to be entertained under a pre-defined process after publication of draft SECC list. Accordingly, all published Draft District Lists were put for public scrutiny before Panchayat and were displayed in Gram Sabha except names of caste/tribe/religion details. Complaints / Objections were to be thereafter examined by designated officers within mandated 45-82 days. However, this process resulted in to considerable time over run since more than 1.20 crore households out of 17.91 crore had raised objections which brought time over run of more than 485 days in certain cases. Now, 99.99 % of COTS have been addressed but yet nearly 43,000 Claims & Objections are required to be uploaded after verification. Since valid information on 99.70 % households is now available, a distinct credibility is added to the provisional data which is now open for examination and deriving actionable meanings.
The status of SECC as on 27.06.2015 is as under
i. Districts Covered 640
ii. Enumeration Completed 640
iii. Verification Completed 640
iv. Draft List Published 628
v. Final List Published 277
vi. Final List Published of States 13 States/ UTs
vii. States Ready to Publish Final List 21 States/UT
-Claims & Objections Invited & Resolved 99.66%
viii. Draft List Awaited 12
-NCT Delhi 9/9
-Himachal Pradesh 1/12
-Maharashtra 2/ 35
Visit http://secc.gov.in/welcome for full report.
