The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, CCEA has approved the proposal of Department of Rural Development for revision of cost of Socio Economic and Caste Census, SECC 2011. <br/><br/>It provides for revising the cost of SECC 2011 to over 4893 crore rupees from the approved estimated expenditure of nearly 3,543 crore rupees. The move also provides for approval of time and cost overrun and consequential revision in the upper limit of cost per record to the consortium of Central Public Sector Undertakings. <br/><br/>The SECC -2011 project has been concluded on 31st of March last year. The cost has already been committed and the project has met all its milestones. <br/><br/>According to an official release, the Government has been spending a large sum of money on poverty alleviation and welfare programmes in rural and urban areas to assist the poor and the marginalized section of the society. <br/><br/>The SECC has paved the way for better targeting of the poor and evidence based targeted intervention for ameliorating conditions of the poor households. It said, before the availability of SECC data, correct identification of eligible beneficiaries was a major challenge.