Although the Disaster Management Act for Covid containment measures, considered a hindrance in conducting the census, was withdrawn in March this year the Centre has not taken any further action on conducting the much-delayed population enumeration.
The central government is unlikely to conduct the decadal census before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, expected to take place in April-May that year.
“No preparation has begun to conduct the census. Fieldwork started in April 2020 -- eight to nine months beforehand. There is little time left to conduct the census in April 2023. If the Census is not done next year, it is unlikely to be conducted in 2024 because it will clash with the schedule for the general elections,” a government official in the know said.
While the government had notified conducting the 2021 decadal census in the Gazette of India on March 28, 2019, it had to postpone the field activities due to the outbreak of the pandemic.
However, even though the Centre, as well as the states, withdrew the Disaster Management Act for Covid containment measures in March this year, which was considered a hindrance in conducting the census, the Centre has not taken any further action on conducting the much-delayed population enumeration.
Meanwhile, on October 19, Vivek Joshi, who was registrar general and census commissioner of India (RGCCI), became secretary in the Department of Financial Services, which is in the finance ministry. Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, additional secretary in the home ministry, has been given additional charge of RGCCI, which, officials say, is a signal that the Census is not a priority at present.
Requests for a meeting with the RGCCI and a questionnaire sent to the home ministry didn’t elicit any response.
India conducts its census in two phases: First, house listing is carried out, followed by population enumeration. Fieldwork for the first phase provides data on housing conditions and household amenities and assets of households, while that for the second phase provides data on demography, religion, Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SC/ST), language, literacy and education, economic activities, migration and fertility.
Each state will have 45 days to finish fieldwork for house listing and the process must end in six months -- conventionally between April and September.
“Weather is a major factor in conducting the census. It can’t be conducted during the rainy or winter season. Usually states finish house listing in April-May because the monsoon arrives in many parts of the country in June. So even if the Census is notified now, it can’t be conducted in 2023 owing to lack of time,” a second official said.
The second phase -- population enumeration -- is carried out, also conventionally, between February 9 and February 28.
The other big challenge is training around 3 million enumerators, which is time-consuming. “It is the state governments that conduct the census. The Centre provides only national trainers -- around 100. But the master trainers and field trainers belong to the states, which will further train the enumerators,” the second official said.
To streamline the population count, pilot studies in the form of pre-tests are conducted before the actual census.
“The last pre-test was conducted in December last year. Since a lot of time has passed and some technological changes have been made in the enumeration process, another pre-test may be required,” the second official said.
In his last public comment on the Census exercise, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on May 9 said the government had decided that the next census, whenever that happened, would be an e-census.
“We have taken the historic decision of turning the paper census into a digital census,” Shah said.
The RGCCI has developed a census mobile app, into which enumerators will feed the data on their field visits.
A R Nanda, a former Census commissioner (1991-94) and a current member of the apex technical advisory group on census matters, said the last meeting of the committee that approves technical changes in conducting Census was held in December.
“Since a heavy dose of technology has been introduced into the Census this time, it will take a lot of time to train enumerators. To conduct house listing exercises beginning April 2023 and enumeration in February 2024, training should have started by now. I don’t understand why the government is delaying the Census exercise,” he added.
Census data plays a crucial role in framing public policy and leads to evidence-based decision making. The Supreme Court in July had directed the Centre not to restrict benefits under the National Food Security Act to the people covered by Census 2011 and factor in population projections in the absence of Census 2021. The Act requires coverage to be updated in accordance with the latest census figures.
The 2021 Census is also crucial for the delimitation of assembly and parliamentary constituencies in 2027 because the current number of Lok Sabha and assembly seats remains frozen on the basis of the 1971 census.
What has complicated matters is the demand from states like Bihar, Odisha, and Maharashtra to collect caste details in the census. The Government of India has not enumerated the population in caste terms other than SCs and STs in the census since independence.
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