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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | For an idea of India

For an idea of India

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published Published on Apr 4, 2010   modified Modified on Apr 4, 2010


The watchword of India’s decennial population census for 2011 is “Our Census, Our Future”. By focusing on the future the managers of Census 2011 have wisely tried to steer away from the past in enumerating the present. Demographers and social scientists will understandably use the data to analyse changes in the economy and society since the last census of 2001. But Census 2011 is more about the future than the past because it will be used to construct for the very first time an electronic database on the basis of which the government of India will issue a Unique Identity Number to every enumerated and finger-printed person. Covering 640 districts, 5,767 tehsils, 7,742 towns and more than 6 lakh villages in the country, the 15th National Census takes forward a process first launched in 1872. The socio-economic and cultural database will enable the government to produce the National Population Register. Thousands of enumerators, mostly school teachers, local officials and senior citizens will span out across the country to collect a range of information that will include, for the first time, data on ownership of mobile phones, computers, internet, availability of treated drinking water facilities, electricity and so on. The importance of the census for India cannot be under-estimated. It is a mirror to a changing, complex society and economy. Census data have been used for the empowerment of people and for policy planning. More recently, the corporate sector has drawn on the data and its analysis for its own marketing and manufacturing strategies. In more modern and better wired economies the population census is no longer the only means of data collection. But in India, where a vast majority of the people are still not part of the modern networked economy, the census retains enormous economic value.

Institutions like the Election Commission and the Registrar-General of Census have reasons to feel proud of their record because they perform a task and on a scale that few other countries in the world can even imagine. The modernisation of data collection, storage and retrieval has hugely improved its utilisation and potential. The website of the registrar-general and census commissioner, www.censusindia.gov.in, is comprehensive but is still ‘under construction’ as far as Census 2011 is concerned. It promises to offer some useful and interesting material like ‘census for kids’, which should have more visual content than is presently available on the site. The key to the successful conduct of Census 2011 would lie in the ability of the government and national political leadership to keep the focus on the economic benefits of enumeration, and eschew its political misuse. There is increasing evidence in India of greater awareness among all sections of society of the importance of accurate and relevant data. The weaknesses of Indian statistical database, to the extent they exist, arise more out of the inertia of the data gathering and dissemination systems than any resistance from the population being surveyed or enumerated. It is a measure of an open and free society and of an aware and empowered people that they are willing to share personal information with the agencies of the government. It is up to government and researchers to make the best use of the information gathered.


The Business Standard, 5 April, 2010, http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/for-an-ideaindia/390770/
 

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