New Delhi, July 3: India has a problem at hand and its magnitude is much higher than what was imagined or reported. That is the short and succinct message of the socio-economic caste census (SECC) released on Friday.
According to the census, 49% of rural households show signs of poverty. And 51% of households have 'manual casual labour' as the source of income. Whichever way the figures are sliced and diced, the poverty data leaves no scope for assurance or optimism. Till now, every survey had been showing poverty as receding.
The survey has used seven indicators of deprivation: All definite pointers to subsistence-level existence and serious handicaps like 'kuccha houses', landless households engaged in manual labour, female-headed households with no adult working male member, households without a working adult, and all SC/ ST households.
While there can be room for correction, experts are unanimous that this would not change the bleak picture significantly. For instance, they are unanimous that all those dependent on 'manual casual labour' for livelihood — 51.14% of households — are bound to be poor. The dismal scenario is illustrated by another set of dire figures: 2.37 crore households live in one-room kuccha houses, constituting 13.25% of the 17.91 crore rural households. At the same time, 30% of rural households own no land and are engaged in manual labour.
The overall poverty figures for the country will also take into account the urban household survey that is yet to be released. But they, whenever they are out, are unlikely to change the overall picture. The degree of deprivation as evidenced by the rural survey poses an intractable challenge for the Modi government if it wants to draw up a consolidated list of the poor, known as 'Below Poverty Line'. If the government goes by the new evidence, the BPL category would balloon beyond its fiscal capacity. Conversely, if it seeks to put a ceiling and depress the figures, it would attract the kind of controversy that had hit the UPA.
The last government-commissioned figure had put the poverty line at a much lower 30%. The divergence is possibly the reason why the rural development ministry has desisted from coming out with a poverty figure while releasing the data for SECC. A possible way out for the Centre would be to keep various deprivation figures — like on housing, employment, destitution— separate and use them for better targeting of niche welfare and development programmes.
The option of drawing up a fresh consolidated poverty list a la BPL may not be exercised. SECC may be the fuel to partisan political fire. For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who does not tire of accusing Congress of keeping the country trapped in under-development, it will serve as the catalyst to intensify his campaign. But the negative messaging has its limits and there is risk of the damning statistics getting identified with the government of the day; that is BJP.