Arun Jaitley releases socio-economic caste census for better policy-making

New Delhi: 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 per cent, the first Socio Economic and Caste Census released in eight decades said on Friday.

The percentage of Scheduled Caste (SC) households paying income tax was 3.49 per cent while Scheduled Tribe (ST) tax-paying rural households were mere 3.34 per cent, the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 said.

Releasing the Census, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the data will help in better targeting of government policies. "The enormity of schemes and reaches that all governments have, this document will form a basis of helping us target groups for support in terms of policy planning," he told reporters here.

He said the document will reflect the reality of India and be a very important input for all policymakers both for the central and state governments.

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.

"It is after 7-8 decades that we have this document after 1932 of the caste census. It is also a document which contains various details ... who are the ones who have qualitatively moved up in terms of life, which are the ones both in terms of geographical regions, social groupings which in future planning needs to be targeted," Jaitley said.