One database for all welfare schemes in works

Ahead of the general elections in 2024, the government will merge two of its flagship beneficiary identification schemes to complete an asset-based classification of the poor for targeted social and economic benefits delivery.

The Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) will be rolled into the Social Registry being jointly developed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and NITI Aayog.

After this merger, the Social Registry will become a single-source database register for all welfare programmes that will be updated on a real-time basis, a senior government official told ET.


According to the official, who did not want to be identified, the SECC will be merged into the Social Registry once it is ready as it will help the government plan and better allocate funds to various social sector schemes.

The SECC is a decadal exercise and is dependent on the census, making the information dated after some time.

"SECC has the potential to move from being only a census-like economic database to becoming the core of a functioning social registry information system," the official added.

The SECC data compiled by the rural development ministry has been used since 2014 for the identification of beneficiaries for various social sector schemes.

It provides for the automatic exclusion of beneficiaries based on 14 parameters, automatic inclusion on the basis of five parameters, and grading of deprivation on the basis of seven criteria.

The Social Registry, on the other hand, will have household information on assets and benefits availed through government schemes. It is being drawn up using the household data collected under the ongoing population census.

Under the Social Registry, the government is collecting real-time data on homelessness, landlessness, employment status and benefits being received by the family besides the number of persons in it to help implement welfare schemes more effectively.

Most developed nations maintain social registries on a real-time basis and the government feels India needs one at the earliest as the data collected under SECC has become dated. It may not cover eligible beneficiaries that may have been added since the outbreak of the pandemic.