Odisha wants to conduct socio-economic caste enumeration with census

Odisha wants a socio-economic caste census (SECC) to be conducted simultaneously with the General Census 2021.

Chairing a Cabinet meeting on Saturday, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said the state would move the Centre for a socio-economic caste enumeration to be done either by inserting suitable columns in the census format or by prescribing a separate format for a simultaneous enumeration of socially and educationally backward classes and other backward classes or castes.

The state cabinet observed that the lack of authentic data on socially and economically backward classes and caste, their geographic spread has been a challenge to focused and outcome specific planning.


Passing a resolution, the Biju Janata Dal government said it would impress upon the Narendra Modi government at the Centre for this to be carried and the data published without any delay.
It claimed this would be a fitting tribute to Mahatma Gandhi’s idea of India when the country was celebrating his 150th birth anniversary this year.

The need for this data was also appreciated by the Government of India as evident from the Socio-Economic Caste Census of 2011. However, the proposed formats for 2021 census made no provision to capture details of the socially and educationally backward classes and other backward classes/castes despite having done such exercise in the SECC 2011, whose data is not fully public.

The BJD while supporting the CItizens Ammendment Act has said it would not back an NRC exercise. “As regards NPR, it was already done in 2010 and is being again being repeated as per process laid done in 2020. It is a routine administrative matter” said party spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Sasmit Patra.