A meeting was held under the chairmanship of Birender Singh, Union Rural Development Minister to review the entire exercise of the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) initiated by the Ministry of Rural Development. The SECC enables the Government in ranking households based on authentic information on the socio economic conditions of households. The data and information on households have been obtained through interactive and comprehensive door to door enumeration of households across the country. The entire exercise of census is paperless and has been conducted on handheld electronic devices (Tablet PCs). This has drastically reduced data entry errors and enumerator discretion. This is the first time that such a comprehensive exercise is being carried out for both rural and urban India.
The Minister emphasised that the SECC must be expeditiously concluded by taking all necessary steps, before 15th August 2015 so that the data can be used for planning in the programmes of the Ministry of Rural Development and other Ministries too, while providing the benefits of government development programmes to Gram Panchayats and rural and urban poor households. SECC would enable the Government to introduce much needed ‘focussed and targeted intervention’ in poverty reduction and rural development programmes as it is based on information furnished by the households. A development plan at Gram Panchayat level based on SECC would enable convergence of resources, funds and government’s intervention for preparing and implementing Gram Panchayat Plan for speedy and targeted poverty reduction. The National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) will use the SECC data to undertake planning for poverty free Panchayats involving PRIs and Self Help Groups from poor households.
So far out of 640 districts in the country, 617 districts have published the draft list and 175 districts have even published the final list after dealing with claims and objections. Ministry of Rural Development is following up with the States and 442 District Administrations to expedite publication of the final list.It has been decided by the Minister of Rural Development to mandatorily use SECC data in all MoRD Programmes. The Minister of Rural Development directed the DoRD to incorporate suitable modifications in guidelines of schemes keeping in view the SECC data and that a system of regular data up-dation should be developed so that household wise progress could be mapped and households needing developmental and social support are tracked over the years. SECC data uses National Population Register’s (NPR) Temporary Identification Number (TIN) for identification of households. The same is to be used in all Rural Development programmes to enable better convergence and tracking over time.Special emphasis would be laid on ensuring that data of SECC be made available on time in public domain and all other Departments would be encouraged to make use of it. MoRD will start releasing State specific data online immediately.