The Registrar General of India has directed officials to give special attention to sensitive and complex questions on religion, mother tongue, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe status, caste and other categories while training enumerators for the population enumeration phase of Census 2027.
In the latest communique to all the nodal officers of states and Union Territories, Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan, the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, said the training of Census officials for poll-bound Goa, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand for the second phase of the exercise, population enumeration, should be completed by third week of November.
He said the training for the remaining states where the exercise shall take place next year shall be completed by January 15, 2027.
Population enumeration in Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and areas other than snow-bound areas of Uttarakhand during Census 2027 will take place from December 1, 2026 to January 4, 2027. For the remaining country, the exercise shall be completed by March 1, 2027.
The second phase of the Census is already going on in the Union territory of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
The Central government has also deferred Census 2027 for Manipur, a notification issued by RGI on Saturday said.
“Training shall place special emphasis on sensitive and complex question categories-covering religion, mother tongue, scheduled caste and scheduled tribe status, caste, disability, migration, fertility, and economic activity - with particular attention to appropriate probing techniques and the correct application of category codes,” he said.
The massive headcount exercise which is eighth since Independence shall involve over 34 lakh enumerators countrywide.
The quality and timely completion of training at all levels are as critical as the training itself and shall be subject to active monitoring at every tier through the training dashboard available in the CMMS portal on real time basis, he said.
"Training of all Census functionaries including regular and reserve Enumerators and Supervisors shall be completed within the scheduled timeline so that sufficient time is available for revision, final preparedness, and deployment before the commencement of Population Enumeration," it said.
Directing the officials to stick to batch size of training, the RGI said accordingly, the batch size for Enumerators and Supervisors shall not exceed 50 under any circumstances, and the standard of 40 to 45 shall be the norm.
"For all trainer categories, the ceiling of 40 per batch must be strictly observed. Where the number of eligible trainees exceeds the prescribed ceiling, additional batches shall be created," it said.
Calling the exercise "one of the empirical foundations for building Viksit Bharat" to be conducted by "trained, digitally proficient Census workforce with anchored in the spirit of Seva Bhav", Narayan said an operational expression to this expectation, a structured household interaction framework - PRAMAN (Pehchaan (Identity), Rishta (Rapport), Anurodh (Request), Madad (Assistance), Aankada Shuddhata (Data Accuracy), Nishtha (Commitment))-has been developed for Census 2027 Phase II.
“The Charge Officer shall administer the updated Seva Bhaav Pledge - revised for Phase II - to all Enumerators and Supervisors on the final day of training. The model pledges for Enumerators and Supervisors shall be issued separately along with detailed E&S training guidelines," he said.
He also directed the Census officials from the Headquarters to undertake field visits to independently assess training quality.
“Observers so deputed are empowered to provide direct feedback to trainers, re-orient sessions, or recommend replacement of trainers where quality standards are not being met,” he said.
The decennial exercise, scheduled for 2021, was postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The Union Cabinet has approved Rs 11,718 crore for conducting the Census, which will be the biggest headcount exercise.
(With inputs from PTI)