Health costs forcing families into debt
8 Reality Checks from the SECC
The Ministry of Rural Development released data from the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) on the standard of living of rural households in India on Friday. The numbers come from the SECC which was conducted in 2011 and is meant to provide data on various socio-economic indicators, and most importantly, on caste.
Disappointingly, the socio-economic indicators of various caste groups have not yet been released – what we do have is socio-economic data for rural households by state, and for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe households among them. By identifying various parameters of deprivation, the numbers are now open for the centre and for state governments to decide how they want to define their poor.
Here are 8 big reality checks from the new numbers.
1. Fewer than five per cent of rural households pay income tax. Even among rich states, like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, this number hovers around the five per cent mark.
2. This is not surprising given a staggering fact – in nearly 75 per cent off rural households, the main earning family member makes less than Rs 5,000 per month (or Rs 60,000 annually). In just eight per cent of households does the main earning member make more than Rs 10,000 per month.
The rural east of the country is significantly worse off, while the rural north is actually the most comfortably off financially.
3. Just 20 per cent of rural households own a vehicle, and only 11 per cent own a refrigerator, but 72 per cent own a phone of some sort.
4. These extremely low income numbers follow from the nature of employment that most of rural India is engaged in. The vast majority – over 90% - of rural India, does not have salaried jobs. Over half of all rural households derive their household income mainly from casual manual labour. Another 30 per cent derive it from cultivation.
5. The numbers also point to the subsistence level of farming that rural India currently practises.
Over half of rural India owns no land at all. Among households who do own land, 40 per cent is not irrigated. Just four per cent own any sort of mechanised agricultural equipment, and just 10 per cent own any irrigation equipment. Fewer than four per cent have an agricultural credit card that entitles them to at least Rs 50,000 per month.
6. Working in anything other than agriculture will be a tough ask, given the level of education – fewer than 10 per cent make it to higher secondary or above and just 3.41 per cent of households have a family member who is at least a graduate.
7. There is a substantial difference in the standard of living of India’s Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and “others”. Fewer than five per cent of SC and ST households have a main earner who makes more than Rs 10,000 per month – for “others”, there are twice as many households.
8. When the north of India is split into multiple zones – north, east, central – its rural areas are more prosperous than even the south. India’s east and central regions (including Uttar Pradesh) are the ones that do worst on the seven indicators identified by the SECC as measures of deprivation. Among the indicators, landlessness and a reliance on manual labour contributes the greatest to deprivation. In all, half of rural India is deprived on at least one of these indicators; what indicators to use to calculate poverty, though, is going to be a political choice.
Early results from an official survey on expenditure on health and education show that people are spending far beyond their means on these requirements.
From January to June last year, the National Sample Survey Office collected data from 66,000 households on their utilisation of, and expenditure on, education and health. The data show the growing dominance of the private sector in health and education.
Over 70 per cent of all people who reported an illness in the 15 days preceding the survey went to a private doctor, clinic or hospital in both rural and urban India. The usage of private facilities further rises with income. The frequency of usage of public and private hospitals has not changed much in rural areas, but in urban areas, the usage of private hospitals grew by six percentage points over the past decade.
Allopathy dominates in both rural and urban areas and across all income groups. This despite the fact that treatment in a private hospital costs four times as much as it does in a public hospital on an average, with the treatment of cancer and cardiovascular diseases proving to be most expensive.
As a result, hospitalization proves well beyond the means of most; it can cost a person in the poorest 20 per cent of the country over 15 times their usual monthly expenditure. Even among the richest 20 per cent, hospitalization tends to cost over five times the person’s monthly expenditure.
Yet 85 per cent of the people have no health expenditure support, either from a government scheme or through an employer or private insurance. As a result, over two of three households dip into their savings to pay for hospitalization, and another 20 per cent have to borrow money.
Boys are taken to doctors more frequently than girls in childhood. In the reproductive age, women are hospitalized more frequently than men.
Education
When it comes to education, the public sector still dominates from primary to higher secondary schools, while the private sector dominates when it comes to diploma, graduation and above.
At all levels, a household’s expenditure on education has doubled since 2007-08.
Families spend more on education of boys than girls, and far more in urban than in rural areas. In urban areas, the average expenditure ranges from Rs. 10,000 a year for primary education to Rs. 23,000 a year for a diploma course. In urban areas, education in private institutions costs five times as much as in public schools.
Literacy, second most common form of deprivation.
Nearly 19 per cent 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 first socio-economic and caste census in India since 1934, the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 (SECC), was released here on Friday by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Among the crucial findings of the exercise, conducted by the Ministry of Rural Development, was that about 30 per cent of rural households are landless and derive a major part of their income from manual, casual labour. The second most common form of deprivation was literacy with close to a quarter – 23.5 per cent — of rural households having no literate adults above the age of 25.
Nearly 19 per cent 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 first socio-economic and caste census in India since 1934, the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 (SECC), was released here on Friday by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Among the crucial findings of the exercise, conducted by the Ministry of Rural Development, was that about 30 per cent of rural households are landless and derive a major part of their income from manual, casual labour. The second most common form of deprivation was literacy with close to a quarter – 23.5 per cent — of rural households having no literate adults above the age of 25.
Releasing the census, Mr Jaitley said the findings would form the basis for States and the Centre to take policy decisions on schemes and programmes. “It provides a basis for helping to target groups for support and for policy planning,” he added.
However, the data released on Friday pertained only to the socio-economic parameters of the SECC 2011. The detailed caste-based data that will include figures for the Other Backward Classes will be placed before Parliament.
“Although it is called the Socio Economic and Caste data, the release so far has been of only the socio-economic data. The detailed caste-based data has not yet been released. However, Parliament has asked for this data, and so it will be placed before them at some point. At that point, it will be made public," said National Statistical Commission Chairman Pronab Sen.
Deprivation, not income
The extent of and approach to deprivation captured by the SECC 2011 contrasts with the poverty estimates of the erstwhile Planning Commission, which were income-based. As per the Commission’s last estimate, in 2011-12, 25.7 per cent of India’s rural population was below the poverty line ie. with an income below Rs. 816 per capita per month.
Dr Sen, told The Hindu that the poverty estimates of the Planning Commission and the SECC were not comparable. “This census measures deprivation on the basis of what a household does not have as against the Planning Commission’s poverty estimates that looked at the income an individual does have,” he said.
All above census one raise the one question of the upsc mains gs - I
show the below details and give the answer of the question as per the possible.
General Studies – 1;
Topic: Population and associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies.
1) Critically analyse the important findings of the first socio-economic and caste census in India since 1934, the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 (SECC), with reference to education, health, land, water and electricity accessibility. (200 Words)
Ans:_
No comments:
Post a Comment