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No decision yet on including caste data in Census 2001

No decision has yet been taken on including caste data in the national Census 2001, Census Commissioner Vijayanunni clarified today.

Seeking to defuse the controversy on this issue, Vijayanunni said that following the Mandal agitation, demands were made for reservation of seats in Parliament and state legislatures for other backward castes. As a result, the Union welfare ministry had proposed that the 2001 census be used to collect data on these castes.

As per the Constitution, the number of seats reserved for scheduled castes and tribes are in proportion to their total population. Any move to reserve seats for OBCs would make the availability of data on their total numbers a constitutional necessity. "This is the crux of the matter," he said.

However, he added, no decision has been taken but the Union government is expected to give its verdict within the next few weeks.

The Census commissioner also admitted that collecting data on castes "had not been a happy experience" in the past. Previous Census commissioners, too, had advocated the omission of this category.

Giving other details of Census 2001, the 14th in the series, he said it would be the largest such exercise in the world, covering about 200 million households.

Some 2 million enumerators will fan out into different parts of the country simultaneously in the second week of February 2001, and, over three weeks, collect demographic information and data related to economic activity, literacy, migration and other socio-cultural aspects.

He hoped that, after a gap of 20 years, the next national Census would truly be a countrywide exercise. Law and order related problems resulted in Assam being dropped from the Census in 1981. Ten years later, the same thing happened with Jammu and Kashmir.

Vijayanunni said it was still too early to decide on any new areas of focus for the Census. However, as comparability was an essential ingredient, the information sought in the next Census could not be dramatically different from the previous ones.

State-of-the-art information technology will be used to speedily tabulate and compile the data.

He said the Census authorities were open to modifying the questionnaire to include gender-sensitive information. In the 1991 Census, he pointed out, the question on work was modified specially to include the unpaid work done by women in farms and households.

Stating that the Census was among the most economic exercises of its kind undertaken anywhere in the world, the Census commissioner said the 1991 census was estimated to have cost Rs 4 billion. Keeping inflation and related factors in mind, Census 2001 might cost five times more.

The national Census, first undertaken in 1872, has been an uninterrupted exercise held every 10 years. Even the Second World War, which disrupted the Census exercise in England, did not affect the Indian exercise.

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