Central Govt Releases Socio-Economic And Caste Census

03 July, New Delhi

Central Government Friday released the first ever Socio-Economic and Caste Census in eight decades in New Delhi.

Releasing the census, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, the document will be essential for policy makers both at Centre and state level and the document will form the basis of helping government target groups for support in terms of policy planning. He added that the data will help in identifying the root causes of poverty.

Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh said, the government will use the caste census for better data on household growth. He added that government now has regionally reliable data for rural households through the socio-economic caste census. Rural Development Ministry had begun the exercise for the census in 2011.

The provisional socio-economic data for Rural India provides useful data on households regarding various aspects of their socio-economic status. Just 4.6 per cent of all rural households in the country pay income tax while such households with salaried income are close to 10 percent.

The percentage of Scheduled Caste households paying income tax was 3.49 per cent while Scheduled Tribe tax-paying rural households were mere 3.34 per cent.

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.