The government is keen to go ahead with the caste-based census.
The first meeting of the Group of Ministers on the caste-based census, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, has been scheduled for Thursday, where the group will discuss the modalities of the proposed exercise.
Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, Law Minister M Veerapa Moily, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister M K Alagiri and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar are the other members of the group.
Sources say Chidambaram had mooted the suggestion that the caste-based census should be included in the second phase of the ongoing census exercise and clubbed with the biometric card data to ease the logistical constraints.
It is learnt that the group of ministers is likely to discuss this suggestion as well as any other methods which its members could suggest.
There has been a national debate on whether India needs a caste-based census. Some believe it will further polarise
an already polarised society while others feel such a census is needed to ensure a fairer distribution of resources, particularly those which are earmarked for the backward sections of Indian society.
Sources say the basic decision to go ahead with the caste-based census has been taken. What the group of ministers will do on Thursday is look at the process by which it can be implemented in the least possible time.
The National Advisory Council, headed by United Progressive Alliance Chairman Sonia Gandhi, will also meet on Thursday to look at the Food Security Bill, a crucial component of the second UPA government's promise to provide cheap and plentiful food to the poor.
This bill is considered to be one more step to ensure that the largest possible number of poor Indians do not go to bed hungry. The Food Security Bill would be as historic as the Right to Education bill with Congress president Sonia Gandhi keen to ensure that there are no slip-ups and incorporates all the required parameters.