Urgent need to get on with census process
Questions are being raised about the validity of official data as the figures available from the census of 2011 are hugely outdated. The decennial census, held every ten years since the British first kicked off the exercise in 1881, was to start in 2021, but it has been postponed indefinitely for the first time in history. The collection of data in two phases—first, on housing and household-related issues, and the second, on a spectrum spanning population, education, religion, caste, language literacy and fertility—is a massive exercise involving lakhs of trained enumerators. They ask a long list of questions ranging from the size of the family to whether it uses a toilet and has an internet connection. The postponement of the census, which starts on the same day throughout the country, has left these questions unanswered. India has rapidly grown since 2011, and essential socio-economic data is 12 years old and largely obsolete.
Census data is a crucial tool for economic and fiscal planning, and the lack of up-to-date information can skew targets and deployment of resources. This may also negatively impact large swathes of the population. For instance, welfare schemes such as subsidised food supply under the National Food Security Act may reach families that have fallen into poverty in the intervening years since 2011. The Census exercise, slated to start in early 2021, was initially postponed since the boundaries of states were not frozen; and the home ministry said that Covid-19 had made groundwork impossible.
Now Covid is behind us. But how does one explain Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai’s statement in the Rajya Sabha last December 14 that the census has been “postponed till further orders” because of the pandemic and other factors? With the Lok Sabha poll coming up in 2024, it is unlikely things will move. From the government’s point of view, just as well! New census data may expose many of the government’s claims. For instance, ‘Housing for All’ was to have been achieved for all urban areas by 2022. Or, the BJP government has claimed that India’s villages are now ‘open-defecation free’. Both claims may be so much kite-flying. One can now only appeal to the government’s sense of propriety to rise above politics and ensure the delayed census gets going. Good planning depends on robust, up-to-date data, and no compromises should be allowed.