New Delhi, July 16 (IANS): The Union cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday gave its approval to a proposal to form an expert group under the chairmanship of Niti Aayog vice chairperson Arvind Panagariya to classify caste names returned in the Socio-Economic and Caste Census, 2011 (SECC).

The enumeration under the SECC has thrown up about 46 lakh caste/sub-caste/synonyms/ surnames/clan/gotra names and the expert group has been assigned to classify this data, an official release said.

The expert group will be serviced by the ministries of social justice and empowerment as well as tribal welfare, which will nominate other members to the group.

The central government decided to collect data on castes through the SECC in May 2011 which was conducted by respective state governments.

The field survey on economic data has since been completed and the socio-economic data relating to rural areas has been released by the ministry of rural development.

The work on urban data is under progress.