New Delhi: The Registrar General of India (RGI) is preparing to conduct field trials of the first phase of the Census and the National Population Register (NPR) exercises in one block of every village using a mobile application, according to The Hindu.
The first phase of these Census involves house listing and housing census, while NPR will be updated. It was scheduled to begin on April 1 last year but was postponed indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to the newspaper, it is unlikely that the exercise will be conducted this year as the pandemic still rages on and the vaccination drive is still in its early stages.
Many civil society activists have opposed the updating of the NPR, saying it could form the basis of a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC). Fears exist that the NRC, seen in consonance with the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), could oversee the disenfranchisement of Indian Muslims. The Centre has told parliament that there are no plans to conduct a nationwide NRC, but said in an affidavit before the Supreme Court that the exercise is necessary.
According to The Hindu report, the pre-test or field trials for the Census and NPR through the app will cover one block of every district, which is “expected to cover 50 to 60 households”.
The app will contain questionnaires on house listing and housing census and the NPR, a senior government official told the newspaper.
“The dates for conducting the Census exercise have not been finalised yet. But the enumerators will have to be trained in using the app. Many enumerators are young schoolteachers who are expected to use the app instead of the paper schedule [form]. There will be incentives for the electronic form,” the official said.
The second phase of the Census involves population enumeration.
The RGI has already notified the 31 columns on which enumerators will seek responses for the house listing and housing census. Among the questions are whether the person has access to LPG or piped natural gas connection; owns a radio, transistor, television, laptop, computer, telephone, mobile phone or smartphone; and has access to the Internet.
While the questions for the NPR are not public, some additional questions are known. Thse questions will seek to know the date and place of birth of the respondent’s father and mother, last place of residence and mother tongue, Aadhaar number, voter ID card, mobile phone and driving licence numbers.
According to The Hindu, the NPR exercise has in the past collected details on 14 parameters only and has an electronic database of more than 119 crore residents.
“The app will have the NPR schedule also. Before it is rolled out, the app has to be tested for glitches, and field trials are to be conducted,” the official said.
RGI Vivek Joshi chaired a virtual meeting of the directors of Census Operations of all states on February 9, according to the newspaper, during which preparations for the Census field trials using the app were reviewed.
On February 10, Union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai informed the Rajya Sabha that “an app for the collection of data and a Census portal for the management and monitoring of various Census-related activities has been developed”.
“Instruction manuals for enumerators and other Census functionaries have been prepared. A pre-test of the Census was undertaken from August 12, 2019 to September 30, 2019 in selected areas of all the States and Unions Territories to test the Census questionnaire and methodology,” he said.
Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced on February 1 that Rs 3,768 crore had been allocated for Census in the financial year 2021-22.
In all, the Centre has approved a budget of Rs 8754.23 crore for conducting the Census.