The Socio-Economic Caste Census website, which contains household-level data on deprivation and assets collected in 2011-12, has been defunct for the last two months, two researchers said expressing concern that this would handicap comparative studies.

The rural development ministry carried out the SECC in collaboration with the housing ministry, Registrar General of India, and state governments. In 2015, the NDA government compiled and released the economic data but withheld the caste data citing overlap and incorrect categorisation.

The two researchers who spoke to The Telegraph said, while seeking anonymity, that with the website defunct, the data was inaccessible to the public.

The only way to get the data now was through the time-consuming process of RTI applications, they said.

P.C. Mohanan, former acting chairperson of the National Statistical Commission (NSC), said: “A website may remain defunct for a few hours or a day. But if it is defunct for more than two months, it is unusual.”

He said data was always relevant, no matter how old: “When the data becomes old, its relevance increases. The old data gives details… (that) help researchers and the public to understand the changes (that have occurred) over the years.”

One of the researchers underlined that the Centre had withheld several survey reports in the recent past.

The NDA government never published the Consumer Expenditure Survey 2017-18, which is believed to have shown a fall in expenditures. The release of the Periodic
Labour Force Survey of 2017-18 — which showed a four-decade high in unemployment — was delayed by six months, till after the 2019 general election.

“It is possible that the government does not want people to access the old (SECC) data and undertake studies to ascertain the economic changes in their areas. This (defunct website) could have been done intentionally,” the researcher said.

The rural development ministry acknowledged that the website was down but denied this was intentional.