Census 2021: Govt to seek info on toilets, mobile number, vehicles owned

(File photo: Reuters)

New Delhi: Even as uncertainty over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) looms across the country, the Ministry of Home Affairs on Thursday clarified that the Census data, which includes NPR this time, will not seek any documentary proofs.

The spokesperson for the MHA said, "No documents would be asked by the enumerators for the NPR exercise. If the respondents want to present documents for verification, they are free to do so. There would be no compulsion from the side of the enumerators.

Meanwhile, a meeting has been called by the MHA on Census and Censuses for tomorrow (January 16). All states Chief secretaries will be participating in the conference except West Bengal. the meeting will be chaired by Minister of State Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai.

The Census for 2021 will be held in two phases, in the first phase which begins from April 1 to September 30, 2020, the data will be compiled for house listing with household-specific information like who is the head of the house, how many people live in the house, what are the facilities in the house, while in the second phase, which will begin from February 2021, the questions will be individual specific. 

A question like "​​How many people live in a house?" will also help to ascertain the population count that is being covered by the census taker. For "difficult areas' government officials can also be sent by helicopters, the help of helicopter was taken for the 2011 census too but this year it will be used in an expanded manner.

For the first time, this will be a digital census in which officers will be able to calculate data via mobile, there will be a special app for census developed by the government which the officers can use by downloading on their mobile phones. Training will be done in four phases. National trainer, master trainer, field trainer and enumerator will be given training at these four levels.

In the first phase, 30 lakh employees will be assigned for this work, last time the counting officer got Rs 5,500. This time the counting officer will include house listing, census and National Population Register, so he will get Rs 25,000.

The census survey will include National Population Register (NPR) too. The NPR and census forms will be different. In the first phase of the census and NPR, the household will have to confirm the information given by them. No biometric is be taken in NPR, no paper will be sought either. You just have to submit the correct information.

This time these new questions will be included in NPR like; "What is mother tongue, where was the last time the owner of the house was living, place of birth, information on parents?"

Meanwhile, West Bengal and Kerala have said that they will not implement NPR at the official level in the state and the Registrar General of India has received information about it, the rest of the states have notified the process of National Population Register.

The house listing process will have 34 questions covering 31 topics. 

According to the census reports of Indian Census 2011, the population of India was 1,210,854,977.

Here are the questions you will be asked:

1.Building Number
2. Census House Number
3. Predominant material of floor, wall and roof of the census house
4. Ascertain use of census house
5. Condition of the census house
6. Household number
7. Total number of persons normally residing in the household
8. Name of the head of the household
9. Sex of the head of the household
10. Whether the head of the household belongs to SC/ST/Other
11. Ownership status of the census house
12. Number of dwelling rooms exclusively in possession of the household
13. Number of married couple(s) living in the household
14. Main source of drinking water
15. Availability of drinking water source
16. Main source of lighting
17. Access to latrine
18. Type of latrine
19. Wastewater outlet
20. Availability of bathing facility
21. Availability of kitchen and LPG/PNG connection
22. Main fuel used for cooking
23. Radio/Transistor
24. Television
25. Access to Interner
26. Laptop/Computer
27. Telephone/Mobile phone/smartphone
28. Bicycle/scooter/motorcycle/moped
29. car/Jeep/Van
30. Main cereal consumed in the household
31. Mobile number