Three fourth rural houses earn 5000 rupees a month

New Delhi: The highest earning member in about three-fourths of all rural households in the country made less than 5,000 rupees a month.

This was revealed in the first Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 that federal Finance Minister Arun Jaitley released on Friday. Such a survey was taken after 81 years.

The census was carried out in all the 640 districts of the country using 640,000 electronic hand-held devices, the government said while releasing the socio-economic data for rural India.

India has total 243.9 million households, including 179.1 million rural areas.

The census showed that the monthly income of highest earning member in 74.49 percent rural households was below 5,000 rupees a month. Only 8.29 percent of rural households had members earning 10,000 rupees or more. Of these, 5.02 percent were in government jobs, 1.12 percent in public sector and the remaining 3.58 per cent in private sector, the data said.

According to a government release, the Ministry of Rural Development has taken a decision to use the SECC data in all its programs.

Also, the Ministry of Rural Development, in consultation with states, is trying to implement a convergent and integrated poverty reduction plan with Gram Panchayats and deprived households as priority, the release added.

Nearly 19 percent of India’s rural population in 2011 lacked at least one of seven socio-economic parameters used to estimate deprivation that include source of income, the presence of an able and literate adult and quality dwelling.

The survey also revealed 30 percent of rural households are landless and derive a major part of their income from manual, casual labor. The second most common form of deprivation was literacy with close to a quarter – 23.5 percent — of rural households having no literate adults above the age of 25.

Releasing the census, Jaitley said the findings would form the basis for States and the Centre to take policy decisions on schemes and programs. “It provides a basis for helping to target groups for support and for policy planning,” he added.