Socio-Economic and Caste Census 2011 Begins

The 1^st ever post independence Socio-Economic and Caste Census 2011 today began from the Sankhola village of Hazemara block in West Tripura District. It is a door-to-door census in the entire country.

               

                Launching the Census Socio-Economic and Caste Census 2011 Shri B.K.Sinha Secretary, M/o Rural Development ,Govt. of India said this gigantic exercise  will  pave the way to identify the households living below the poverty line in rural and urban areas of the country. The entire process will be completed by end of 2011-12. The results relating to the identification of poor households would be utilized in the 12^th Five Year Plan (2012-13 to 2016-17). The Registrar General of India  and Chief Commissioner of Census Shri C. Chandramouli and  Chief Secretary Govt. of Tripura  Shri S.K. Panda  was also present on the occasion.

He said  The BPL Census will be conducted by State Governments/Union Territory Administrations with the technical and financial support of the Ministry of Rural Development. The Census would be based on a self-declaration model of the respondents. The information would be verified and approved by the Gram Sabha. Procedure for filing claims and objections and its disposal will be prescribed separately by the Ministry. The Ministry will also provide detailed guidelines for conducting survey and finalization of BPL list. 

                               

Low cost handheld device will be used for collection of data in Socio Economic Census 2011.  It would reduce the time required in processing the data after collection in the field.

                Bharat Electronic Ltd. (BEL) is involved in the production of this device on large scale. It is proposed to use this device, produced by BEL, in Socio Economic Census 2011.

            National Informatics Centre (NIC) will develop the Management of Information System (MIS) for the management of the database of Socio Economic Census 2011 and to facilitate its subsequent use by the MORD, other ministries and State Governments for their own requirements.

It may be noted that for the  Identification of BPL (below poverty line) Households in Rural Areas the suggestions of the Expert Group chaired by Dr NC Saxena and a Pilot Study carried out in 29 States/Union Territories have been the basis of the methodology to conduct the Census in the rural areas.

                It has been decided to include (a) households without shelter, (b) destitutes/living on alms, (c) manual scavengers, (d) Primitive Tribal Groups, and (e) legally released bonded labourers, in the BPL list. These households will have the highest priority for inclusion in the BPL list.

                The remaining households will be identified as poor from the angle of deprivation to which they are subjected to. The deprivation of the households is assessed from the following deprivation indicators.

·                            Households with only one room with  kucha walls and kucha roof;

·                            Households with no adult member between age 16 to 59;

·                            Female headed households with no adult male member between age 16 to 59;

·                            Households with any disabled member and no able bodied adult member;

·                            SC/ST households;

·                            Households with no literate adult above 25 years;

·                            Landless households deriving the major part of their income from manual casual labour;

                For the households eligible for ranking under deprivation indicators as per paragraph, a deprivation score would be derived for each household by adding up the number of deprivations satisfied by the household. This score will vary from a minimum 0 to maximum 7. The order of priority for inclusion of households in the BPL list would be from largest number of deprivations to smallest number of deprivations. For the purpose of coverage income re-distributive anti-poverty programmes and welfare schemes of the Government, households eligible for compulsory inclusion will have highest priority, followed by households with higher deprivation scores. For such welfare programme where universal coverage is not permissible, the system would be capable of generating a ranking of priority household till poverty caps prescribed by the Planning Commission are attained. The deprivation cut-off will be chosen in such a manner that the total percentage of households will be less than or equal to the cut-off poverty ratio prescribed by the Planning Commission. The difference in the number of households prescribed by Planning Commission and arrived at by deprivation cut-off method, if any, will be identified by permitting households with one less deprivation than deprivation cut-off from Panchayats which have highest percentage of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribe population in the State arranged seriatim in decreasing order of percentage of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribe population.

               

Several households would be automatically excluded from the BPL list. These are:

·                                      Households owning Motorized Two/Three/Four Wheelers/Fishing boats (which require registration);

·                                      Households owning mechanized Three/Four wheeler agricultural equipments such as tractors, harvesters etc;

·                                      Households having Kisan Credit Card with the credit limit of Rs.50,000 and above;

·                                      Households with any member as Government Employee: gazetted and non-gazetted employees of Centre government, State government, Public Sector Undertakings, Government-aided autonomous bodies and local bodies. This will exclude incentive and other honorarium based workers like ASHA, Anganwadi workers etc;

·                                      Households with Enterprises registered with the Government for any purpose: any non agricultural enterprise registered with the Central or State Governments;

·                                      Households with any member in the family earning more than Rs. 10,000 p.m.;

·                                      Households paying income tax or professional tax;

·                                      Households with three or more rooms with pucca walls and pucca roof;

·                                      Households owning Refrigerator;

·                                      Households owning landline phones;

·                                      Households owning  2.5 acres or more irrigated land with at least one irrigation equipment such as diesel/ electric operated borewell/ tubewell;

·                                      5 acres or more land irrigated for two or more crop seasons;

·                                      Households owning 7.5 acres or more  land with at least one irrigation equipment such as diesel/ electric operated borewell / tubewell;