Mobilising Support for India’s Census-



Census of India 2001

Mobilising Support for India’s Census-

Constraints and Challenges

J K Banthia

Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India

Pretoria, South Africa

26th November 2001

INTRODUCTION

Few countries in the developing world have the distinction of having an unbroken series of a population data set coming from population censuses as India has. Beginning at least from the non-synchronous series in 1860s and ending in1871, the first census is usually dated 1872, India carried out its successive, uninterrupted population census, the fourteenth, in February – March 2001. Apart from the obstacles in planning and executing the several steps of census, much worldwide hype had been building around the pregnant expectation of whether India’s population is going to touch the magical number of a billion or not? Population projections had suggested that possibly the billion

mark would be crossed sometime in May 2000. The arrival of the billionth Indian had been timed not only to the month and date but also to the minute and seconds and made world news headlines. Against such a media hype and built up, Census 2001 was to be conducted a few months later, when in a way the result had already been declared. Suppose the preliminary results of census declared on 26th March 2001 had announced India’s provisional population to be less than a billion, all hell would have been let loose. However this was not impossible! An undercount of about 3-4 percent, not an improbable scenario in several censuses in developing nations, was all that was required for such a fiasco. The stakes involved were exceptionally high and much reputation and credibility at risk.

Census in India is carried out under the provisions of the Census of India Act, 1948. There are several articles in the Constitution, which make it mandatory for the government to undertake census. Census is carried out in two phases- Houselisting and House Numbering Operations for making the census frame for the second phase and to collect certain data on the housing conditions. The Population Enumeration phase which was carried out throughout the country between 9th to 28th February 2001 with a revisional round between 1st to 5th of March. In Jammu and Kashmir and certain snow bound inaccessible areas the population enumeration was carried out during September to December 2000. Census is carried out by the canvassing method, which involves visiting each and every household and collecting information at their doorsteps, by an enumerator. Every person within the boundaries of the country is enumerated irrespective of sex, caste, religion, nationality and age. This includes the houseless and pavement dwellers also. Census information collected is confidential by law and is used only for statistical purposes in aggregated form at the pre-designated administrative levels. It is mandatory for every household to provide information in respect of each member as truthfully as possible to the approved questions put by the census enumerator.

Although it is not possible to list all the constraints and challenges faced in mobilising support while undertaking the preparations for Census of India 2001 an attempt is made to summarize them under five main heads as follows:

1 Financial

2 Legal

3 Socio-political

4 Technical

5 Administrative

These are discussed at some length in the succeeding pages and will provide some insight of the sort of problems which the country as big and diverse as India is faced with while conducting its census. It also allows us to know how these problems were overcome and the census completed throughout the country after a gap of thirty years.

1 FINANCIAL- CONSTRAINTS AND CHALLENGES

One of the most critical inputs in organizing census is to get the requisite financial commitment and timely sanction from the government to allow the organization to plan out its activities as per the census calendar. With already a very large population, which continues to increase rather alarmingly, the country was somewhat disadvantagedly placed as it means obtaining a sanction for a bigger budget for census even if everything else remained constant. It is normal procedure in the government to marginally increase the budgetary support over and above what was spent previously. But since censuses are held only once in ten years, the finance ministry looked in utter disbelief when the census budget for 2001 was projected at Rs. 1200 crores- approximately four times over the 1991 estimated expenditure. There were two main objections- why is it necessary to conduct census in two stages and with a much smaller army of the enumerators and supervisors? The reasoning was that expenditure on account of the data collection could be reduced considerably if the above logic was accepted.

It was explained that in absence of a good frame of addresses and absence of house- numbering system in most parts of the country, it was essential that the Houselisting Operations are carried out not only to prepare a frame of enumeration areas but also to collect data on the housing condition in the country. If houselisting phase was not carried out , the undercount of the population at the country and state level could be as high as 5 to 10 percent. In such circumstances no purpose would be served of carrying out the population census and if challenged legally the entire exercise would be indefensible and untenable. Further the main advantage of producing reliable small area statistics would have to abandoned jeopardizing the entire planning process of local areas. To get better value for money spent it was also proposed by the census organization to enhance the scope of data collection during the Houselisting Operations by including several new questions. The focus of enquiry therefore was shifted from ‘WHERE PEOPLE LIVE’ to ‘ HOW PEOPLE LIVE’. The government easily accepted this shift in the purpose and objective of conducting Houselisting Operation to assess the quality of life of the people. The battle had been won but the war still remained.

The question of reducing the number of enumerators and particularly the supervisory staff and their honorarium remained unresolved. The past practice was to appoint one enumerator for 120-150 households in rural areas or for 100-120 households in urban areas. This was a time tested work allocation to enumerators, which had worked well in the past and it was decided to follow the same principle of work allocation for the present census also. For every five enumerator one supervisor was appointed to keep a watch on the progress of the work since census is a time bound operation and to provide technical support whenever problems arose in data collection during the field. The finance ministry argued for enhancing the workload of the enumerators for covering 200 and 150 households in rural and urban areas. It was also suggested to reduce the number of supervisor by providing one supervisor for every ten enumerators. Both these measures would help in reducing the requirement of enumerators and supervisors from two million to less than one and a half million and thereby reducing the expenditure considerably. However this was not found feasible on the ground that since the scope of enquiry was being increased both for the phases of census there was no scope whatsoever of increasing the workload of the enumerator in these new circumstances. Further the pilot survey while pretesting the census schedules had amply demonstrated that the enumerators work load had considerably enhanced. Increasing the number of households therefore would be virtually inviting a disaster in terms of the data quality. Given the short period of three weeks it was found to be impractical for one supervisor to oversee the work of ten enumerators in rural areas where settlements are scattered far and wide. Maintaining a constant liaison in bigger metropolises where the enumerators would be from several government offices would be extremely difficult. It was argued that insistence of appointment of one supervisor over ten enumerators would ultimately lead to virtually no control on monitoring the fieldwork of such a mammoth exercise. Both the coverage and the content of the census data would be adversely affected, hence neither of the proposal of the finance ministry were found to be practical and in view of the high risk involved were ultimately abandoned.

During the British period census enumerators were paid hardly any honorarium as it was considered a part of the essential duty of the village officers to assist government in census taking. Since 1951, after independence, a small honorarium had been introduced. For example in 1961 and 1971 about one dollar was paid as honorarium to enumerators. There was a lot of zest, fervour and enthusiasm in taking part in a national endeavour such as census. Particularly the teachers to offer free volunteer services for census considered it a matter of prestige and honour. However, things have changed considerably in recent years and now it was getting difficult to get enough enumerators even on payment basis. The proposed hike in the quantum of honorarium for the enumeration staff was from about 15 US$ in 1991 to 50 US$ in 2001. This was largely justified in view of the inflation and also the steep increase in the salaries of the government employees, which had taken place since the 1991 census. The average current salary of a teacher was about 250 US$ per month. The workload of both the census phases put together was estimated at equivalent of about twenty-one working days of eight hour each. It was argued that the census enumerator was being only partly compensated taking into account hat census work is a national effort and that the enumerator continues to get his salary as usual. The reluctance of the teachers to take up additional work except census and elections was also a factor to be considered. Further many teachers in urban areas were engaged in taking private tutions which was an extremely lucrative proposition when compared with the tough and exhausting census work of visiting house to house at odd and unearthly hours. There had been scathing criticism of the government after the 1991 census of for being penny wise and pound foolish in paying a pittance to enumerators while preparing such a huge and vital demographic and socio-economic database of the country. The honorarium paid to enumerators elsewhere in the sub-continent was also compared with the present proposal. Ultimately it was pointed out that the per capita cost on account of data collection was going to be only 12 cents and this was a very small cost for obtaining such an important database. After much discussion and in view of the compelling reasons put forward, the proposal to increase the honorarium from 10 US$ to 50 US$ was accepted much to the relief of the census organization. It may not be out of place to mention that this investment appears to be already paying as the coverage and quality of some of the provisional results of census seem to indicate.

Traditionally locating quality professional trainers for training the enumerators and supervisors has been a bottleneck. The sub-district officer who is also the local and ultimately responsible census officer is expected to function as the master trainer but in practice due to multiple day to administrative responsibilities find little time or inclination to undertake and fulfill this important role. This job is ultimately carried out either by the local census clerk or one of the experienced census supervisors who has worked in the earlier censuses or by an official of the census directorate. As a result the quality of the training leaves much to be desired. To overcome this, it was decided to appoint special selected and intensively trained Master Trainers who would take 9 training class each and also subsequently monitor the census help centers at the sub district office. Since there was no separate budgetary allocation for Master Trainers they were appointed as supervisors within the overall strength of the enumerating agency by making suitable changes. The quality of the training was reported to have improved considerably as a result of this newly adopted measure.

Some of the important weakness of the census data was in overcoming the bias against the women which somehow or the other crept in during data collection. Since part of the problem could be attended to if special emphasis and attention be drawn of the enumerator to this gap. Although the census questionnaire had been modified to make it more gender sensitive and the instruction manual also altered considerably to meet this requirement, the question was how to incorporate it as part of training. The gender biases were particularly noticeable in certain north Indian states. The 1991 census data on sex ratio, women literacy and work participation rate was analysed to assess the districts having perceptible gender biases. About 250 such districts were identified and a special capsule on gender issues in census particularly highlighting the local plight was prepared. Retired experienced senior census officials were located and given a special orientation class on gender issues in census and the methodology proposed to be implemented during training of enumerators. These officials were designated as Census Advisors and assigned the specific role of explaining to the enumerators how to make specific queries on gender issues with the help of local examples and earlier census data of the area. There was no budgetary support existed to undertake this desirable activity. Fortunately certain UN agencies such as UNFPA, UNIFEM and UNICEF came forward to support this novel approach proposed by the census organization. As a result over 200 Census Advisors were appointed in the identified critical districts to undertake special training class of the enumerators on sensitizing them in overcoming the gender biases the respondent may have while collection information from the household. It is heartening to note that the vastly improved overall sex ratio of the population inspite of a decline in child sex ratio suggest that that the enumeration of the women in the Census 2001 has possibly improved. Similarly there are enough indications that work participation rate of seem to have improved in many of the north Indian states.

Certain additional cost on account of equipment such as LCD projectors and laptop computers were also met through the assistance of the UN agencies mentioned above. These novel approaches to training of enumerators helped us considerably in making the training classes extremely absorbing and keeping alive the interest until the very last class. Certain other additional costs on account of improving the quality of paper and its printing required for census schedules were met from the overall budgetary support. In the past censuses high quality of paper for census schedules was not an essential requirement but due to adoption of the new scanning and ICR technology use high quality paper became necessary. Although the best quality of paper could not be used due to budgetary and other constraints, yet certain efforts were made to use better quality paper for census schedules than used in the earlier censuses.

The other major budgetary constraint was on account of the funds required for census data processing. Roughly half of the budgetary support was required for this activity if the census data processing of the earlier census was to be continued. In 1991 census about 45000 temporary employees were recruited in 165 offices across the country to undertake the manual data processing work for producing small area statistics and certain tables on religion, language and the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes which required tabulation on a full count. The other tables were produced on a sampling basis and through data entry on computers. If the same methodology was to be adopted it was expected that this would require recruitment of 65000 part time employees for two years and involved opening of temporary 195 offices of about 10000 square feet area each. This proposal would entail an expenditure of about 125 million US$ in addition to cost to be incurred on the data entry of the sampled population. Since the adoption of the appropriate new technology for census data processing was yet to be examined and finalised, the budgetary proposal was made on this count was made as per the methodology adopted in the 1991 census- manual and part computer assisted data entry.

All the above constraints led to an initial estimate of about 260US$. This amounted to about 25 cents per capita direct cost on census data collection and processing. Part of the low per capita cost is the huge economies of scale, which allows certain census expenditure to be spread over and bring down cost considerably.

2 LEGAL – CHALLENGES AND CONSTRAINTS

The authenticity and the credibility of the census data, the fact that it is statutory exercise having constitutional backing and affecting the political representation of certain groups and influencing in a very large way allocation of funds from the government for several development programmes makes the census exercise extremely vulnerable against judicial intervention. Particular segments of the population think of legitimizing their claims through census and therefore look for opportunities of intervening through the census. This is because of the extreme care with which the census exercise is undertaken and its results put in public domain even for very small administrative units and particular social characteristics. Fortunately there have been very few judicial interventions, which have questioned either the process of census taking or the census data. Yet of late there have been increasing incidents wherein certain groups have attempted judicial intervention threatening at times the commencement of the census process.

There is a great religious diversity in India and census is the only authentic source providing details of the religious composition of the population. There are several persuasions and beliefs of the six numerically largest religions of India and certain groups at times insist that they may not shown as part of a particular religious community. For example Lingayats and Veershaivas have been persisting for very long that they are an independent religious community and do not belong to the Hindu fold. Certain litigation have been taken by them right up to the High Court for providing them a separate religious code independent of the Hindus. Fortunately the census procedure require the enumerator to record the name of the religion as reported by the respondent without any modification. Inspite of the court ruling that the procedure followed by census authorities is correct, this religious group threatened not to participate in the census process if their community was not given an independent numeric code. They approached the court again which fortunately did not intervene and the matter is still subjudice.

The issue of recording caste of all the persons during the census has been a matter of debate in independent India. Prior to independence caste groups were recorded in censuses primarily to study the ethnological, anthropological and social composition and behavior of the various segments of the society. It was neither related with political representation, fund allocation or providing concessions in matters of employment to a certain group of people. Since division on the basis of caste led to socio-economic deprivation of certain people, it has been the policy of the governments in independent India not to officially encourage caste in the state policy and therefore the recording of caste has been given up except for the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes. There are certain constitutional provisions for these two groups and these obligations can be fulfilled only by knowing their numbers and certain demographic features. Several writ petitions were filed some of them even during the course of the census taking, seeking judicial interventions for including a question on caste in the census. Fortunately due to timely intervention the courts did not intervene except in one case which is subjudice even now though the census is over. An order of the court staying or modifying the census would put several years of preparatory work and much expenditure incurred on training of enumerators, printing of census schedules and publicity efforts to a complete waste. It would also be difficult to generate again the same kind of environment and momentum so essential for such a massive undertaking. Thus the census organization had to be extremely vigilant and successfully intervene in all such court cases which threatened the very taking of the census. Unfortunately these litigant groups become active only a few days prior to the actual census taking and remain dormant for the next ten years.

As was pointed out earlier, several government employees for undertaking the census work now exhibit much reluctance. This is partly because the teachers are being increasingly involved in taking surveys of various kinds by the state governments and partly because the frequency of the elections in the country increased considerably in recent decades. As a result several parent groups have been demanding that teachers be not involved in any other work except teaching. Certain court cases have been filed in this respect seeking exemption of teachers from all surveys. Since census is a statutory exercise and the census law also provides of mandatory participation by the employees if their services are requisitioned under the Census Act, courts have very little jurisdiction. Yet certain government employees approached the courts and were initially successful in getting exemption from census work. This brought the entire houselisting operation to a grinding halt in a particular metropolitan city. However when it was pointed out to the court that not only these employees had been trained but also there was no option before the government but to requisition their services, the said order was withdrawn and census work commenced. The problem of selecting an appropriate enumerating agency is particularly acute in the metropolitan cities of Mumbai, Calcutta and New Delhi, which require over twenty five thousand enumerators each. The choice of teachers as the main enumerating agency results from the fact that they are the only staff available in several thousands of villages in the country. Teachers as a group are literate, respected in the society and an extremely dedicated and meticulous lot. They are well known in the community, can easily understand the complex census concepts and put them in practice and have by and large extremely neat and impeccable handwriting. This last factor became particularly critical due to the adoption of the scanning technology. Employing educated unemployed youth was full of several problems. Since they were to act as the representative of the government and the required to visit each household it was important to ensure that they did not have a criminal background. One bad incident of theft, robbery or some thing more serious would put an end to this adventure, as the household would refuse to entertain the ‘unemployed enumerator’. Further there was a foreseeable problem of this class of enumerator not returning the filled in census scheduled holding the government to ransom on grounds of providing permanent employment or increasing the honorarium. The risks involved were too big and it was decide not to experiment with the non-government people as enumerators. The courts were also convinced of these justified reasoning and did not grant any relief to the teachers who sought a judicial intervention.

One of the consequences of recruiting temporary employees in the earlier censuses for manual tabulation work was their demand to provide permanent employment by the government after the census work was over. Several of these persons approached the courts seeking orders for either permanent absorption in the census organization even when no post existed or of deploying them for manual tabulation work for census 2001. Much time and effort was wasted in attending to these court cases. Since no manual processing is expected now it is hoped that such litigation would be avoided in future.

3 SOCIO-POLITICAL: CONSTRAINTS AND CHALLENGES

It is a fashion to recommend prior to the commencement of a census inclusion of several questions depending upon ones area of interest. To illustrate, many in government feel that it would most appropriate to net the income levels of the households so as to estimate the poverty levels directly of the Indian population. Several poverty alleviation programmes funded by the government have been in existence for several years. The national statistical office has been making alternative estimates of the prevalence of poverty for several years now, which has only created more debate. An attempt was made to include a direct question on the income of the household but was given up after the Technical Advisory Committee on census did not recommend its inclusion on the ground that the data quality would be a big suspect and create more confusion. However it was decided to include during the houselisting operations several questions on the amenities and certain assets available to the household which may allow assessing the quality of life and thereby serving as proxy indicator for economic stratification of the population.

Although adequate publicity was given assuring people that the information collected at the census would kept fully confidential still there was some lurking doubts in the minds of certain people. Two examples would illustrate this point and its possible impact on the coverage and quality of census data. Thus during the houselisting operations it was noticed that in certain urban areas the landlords were not admitting the presence and thereby permitting the recording of tenants in their houses. If this persisted then it would have led to a higher omission rate than normal and lead to an undercount at the time of the population enumeration since the enumerator would not the tenant household in absence of details in his abridge houselist. On enquiry it was revealed that the enumeration staff belonged to the city municipality and in recent years the municipality had decided to levy enhanced house tax on in case of houses having taxes. This was the reason that the landlords were avoiding disclosure of tenants in their house, fearing higher taxation. Although the census records would not be available to the city municipality, yet there was suspicion that somehow this information would be passed on to them and used against the landlords. A big publicity campaign had to be undertaken seeking the assistance of landlords for their cooperation while at the same time the tenants were exhorted to ensure that they had been reached and included in the census. Similarly some doubts were raised when the census enumerator asked the household if they had a car, telephone and a bank account. A few households felt again in the urban area that this information would be passed on the Income Tax department for taxation purpose. Under the recently amended Indian tax laws it was incumbent upon every individual owning a car or telephone to file a tax return and the additional query on banking facility led some to believe that there was surely an unholy nexus between such enquiry by the census and the Income tax department. Part of the problem lay due to the fact that the Income tax department had undertaken a big publicity drive on this issue just a couple of weeks before the houselisting operation were to commence. The census organization had to issue many clarification that whereas income tax is levied on an individual the census questions were concerned with a household and on top of it the census organization was committed and bound by law not pass any information to anyone outside the organization. Upon issuing of such clarification by and large people were convinced and usually provided information truthfully although once in awhile the enumerator found the respondent disowning his car standing in the porch of his house! Such are the challenges and travails of introducing new questions.

Several socio-political pressures came on the way while formulating the census questionnaire or while conducting the census. Thus although as early as 1998 it had been decided in the data users conference that it would not be advisable for census to include a question on disability and the concerned ministry communicated of this decision, this issue became a highly debatable issue in February 2000. Several NGOs vehemently protested against non-inclusion of a question on disability and put tremendous political pressure on the government to include this question. The census organization explained at length the problems and the organization's limitation for including this question but in vain. Inspite of the several technical reasons regarding the quality of data on disability and the possible adverse impact it may have on census, the government gave in and instructed in May 2000 to include a question on disability during the population census. This meant changing the design and outlay of the already finalised census schedule and framing of instruction without having pretested the question. Since the population enumeration was to begin in Jammu and Kashmir and other snow bound areas in September 2000 this put a lot of avoidable pressure on the organization. Two things however must be said regarding the inclusion of question on disability. First, the NGOs gave a tremendous support in giving wide publicity regarding the question on disability. Second, once the government had decided to include this topic in the census there was no going back and inspite of the initial reservations everyone in the organization took it up as a challenge and did everything possible for netting the maximum possible response for this question. It is too early to say what has been the response as we await the census results for this question.

Another issue raised by certain state governments was to change the dates of population enumeration for their state in view of the population migration due to scarcity conditions. If this request was accepted then it would have been impossible to hold a synchronous census in the country since one part or the other is always affected by local migration. Further it would have been impossible to have an independent cut off date for every administrative unit. For example several rural areas of the state would oppose taking of the census after the agricultural season was over on the ground that a part of its population would migrate to urban areas. On detailed enquiry it was revealed that seasonal migration is more or less a permanent feature in several parts of the country though its quantum may vary marginally from year to year.

Drawing up of the census calendar and determination of the most common and appropriate time for conducting the two phases of census in such a large and culturally diverse country as India is an extremely difficult task. Either the weather conditions or the festivals or the geography and topology, do not mingle well to isolate a period which suits everyone and every geographical region in the country. The months of July to September are the monsoon months in major part of the country. A large number of villages are inaccessible during this period and the vast majority of the population is busy engaged in the agricultural operations. October and November months are typically festival months in much of western, central, northern and eastern India. The people in rural areas in addition are extremely busy with the harvesting of the monsoon crops in large parts of the country. In addition in much of the agriculturally important northern and parts of central and eastern India, people are busy in sowing operations of the winter crop. The months of December and January are the typical winter months in much of the country and accessibility is impossible in certain districts of north India situated in the Himalayan region. In addition almost from mid- December to mid –January, it is festival time due to Christmas, in much of the northeastern states of the country.

February and March are weather-wise relatively better months when it is neither too cold nor extremely hot in much of the country. It may not be out of place to record here, that March is the month of several examinations throughout the country, besides having the important festival of Holi, when lot of seasonal migrant labour travels back to the demographically important states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The month of April particularly is again an important harvesting season for a large chunk of population in the agriculturally important states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. In addition to seasonal migration from this month onwards the temperature and the heat begins to soar up leading to the extremely unbearable summer months of May and June in much of the country except the northeast, where the monsoon sets in. Since the twelve year cycle of the Kumbh mela, a gathering of millions of people on the banks of river Ganga and Yamuna in Allhabad (Uttar Pradesh), was scheduled in January 2001, obviously the census calendar could not be preponed. Such are the constraints in find a suitable period for conducting the census operation – almost a four-week activity. Care also has to be taken in the choice of this period, since at least the preceding three to four months are required for conducting the very intensive training of the millions of enumerators and other census officials. The choice is extremely limited and almost narrows down to the month of February, which usually is free from agriculturally crucial operations, adverse climatic conditions and festivals. For a small portion of the country, February and March are not climatically suitable and therefore in certain part-districts of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh census operations are traditionally carried out in advance during the month of September to avoid the harsh winter when these areas are snow clad and inaccessible. Each household who is covered in the population count is given a certificate by the local census official, providing details of the number of persons enumerated. This is to avoid the double count of the persons already enumerated but had to move out from their normal abode for reasons beyond their control.

The problems in recording of religious affiliation of an individual community generally believed to be a part of a well-known religion has been dealt earlier. Many problems arise in recording and classifying the religion of the tribal communities. For example in the north east certain tribal groups report their religion as Non- Christian. For administrative ease and convenience it has been the tradition to provide a code to numerically large religions while the provision exists for recording the name in full of a particular religious community if the respondent feels so. In the newly created state of Jharkhand, certain tribal groups insisted that their religion should be given a separate numeric code fearing that otherwise either they would be included in the major religion group of the state or left out completely. They threatened not to participate in the census if their demand was not met. Both the census organization and the state government explained at length the provisions for recording of every religion irrespective of the fact whether it had been give a numeric code or not. After much persuasion most of the community leaders were convinced that their religion would be properly recorded in the census. However some disgruntled elements continued to oppose this unsuccessfully by appealing the people to defy the census. Necessary interventions by the district officers, clarifications through the press and on radio and other publicity measure assured the people of the region that no injustice is being done against them and they willingly participated.

4 TECHINCAL: CONSTRAINTS AND CHALLENGES

As reported earlier the scope of the census enquiries both for the houselisting and the population enumeration stage was considerably enhanced with a view to get better value for the money proposed to be spent on census. As many a twelve new questions were included at the houselisting stage with a view to gain better information on the quality of life of the people. These questions included enquiries on the condition of the house, number of married couple and those having an independent room for sleeping, waste water outlet, availability of a bathroom and kitchen and certain assets such as radio/ transistor, television, telephone, bicycle, scooter/ motor cycle/ moped, car/jeep/van. If the household was availing banking services this fact was also recorded. The scope of enquiry on certain questions as source of lighting, type of latrine and location of source of drinking water within or outside the premises was enhanced. Similarly in the household schedule additional enquiry was made in respect of age at marriage for men, type of educational institution attending and sex of the child born during the last one year. The scope of certain census concepts such as ‘work’ and cultivation was expanded to fall in line with definitions used by the national statistical office. The new questions on disability and its type, distance and mode of travel to place of work for non agricultural workers in urban areas and on the total land holdings, its tenure status and type for cultivators were also included. This meant not only framing of new instructions for the enumerators but also creation of several new tables for data processing and dissemination.

For getting better value for money without any additional costs whatsoever for the first time anywhere in the history of census a new concept of slum enumeration block has been introduced in the Census of India 2001. This is expected to partly address the longstanding needs of urban planners looking for reliable data on slum dwellers and their demographic characteristics. Thus one of the important data gaps of the urban demographic profile of will be fulfilled with this pioneering effort without any extra cost. Such creative thinking and innovative approaches will permit the governments to sanction larger budgets for census since it gives the much-desired information without any extra costs.

One of the major changes brought about in the present census was switching over to only the household schedule and abandoning the individual slip altogether. Due to manual census data processing it was found desirable to canvass two schedules at the population enumeration stage, the comprehensive individual slip and a shorter household schedule. However once the decision was taken to switch over to the scanning technology it was no longer felt necessary to continue with the individual slip. This meant however a complete overhauling in the designing of the household schedule and required considerable efforts. The designing and layout of the houselist schedule also required a considerable modification since the recording of responses was switched to numeric rather than in text form. This change meant that the enumerators had to be imparted special training for writing the numeric responses in a particular manner in the limited box area provided for each response. The numerics are written in several different ways in many Indian languages and the teachers are habituated to them in day to day work. Switching over to the international or the Arabic form of numerals for census work was not an easy task. This was however accomplished by preparing a special set of instructions for writing of numerals and printed on the inside first page of the instruction manual and by printing the Arabic numeral zero to nine on each census schedule to help reminding the enumerator this important instruction. Special practice sheets were prepared for writing numerals as apart of training of the enumerators. The response was tremendous and by and large the enumerators followed these instructions very religiously.

To improve the involvement of the enumerators in the census process and for improving the quality of data for the first a provision was made for obtaining the signature or the thumb impression of the respondent. This ensured that the impressions of the enumerator not visiting the household but filling the forms were overcome while for the first time the respondent had the opportunity to see for himself the information which had been collected for his/her household. This simple measure had a tremendous bearing on the census taking for the public felt immensely involved with the census process and ensured that responses to all the questions were recorded. It is felt that as result of this measure the quality of the census data and coverage of the population would improve.

Some information has already been given regarding the conscious extra efforts made for engendering the census and improving the quality of data on women characteristics. This was achieved with improved designing of the census questions and making them more gender sensitive. Incorporating several pictures of unpaid work of women and training the enumerators how to use them at the time of enumeration also redesigned the instruction manual. To highlight the gender aspects of census special publicity measures were taken with UNIFEM, UNFPA and UNICEF giving a helping hand. The aid of Census Advisors was also taken for imparting intensive training to the enumerators for improved reporting of women and their characteristics.

Although GIS could not used for conducting the census through formation of enumeration areas yet all the administrative units from states downward to the village for the entire country have now digitized. This has already helped tremendously in preparation of thematic maps showing spatial distribution of several demographic characteristics. Similarly data dissemination methodology of census results now includes the use of multiple media like printed volumes, floppy diskettes, CD-ROMs and Internet. A well-designed dedicated web site also helps in instant data dissemination worldwide. Thus the major constraint of delays in quick dissemination to a wide spectrum of people has now been over come.

One of the major steps forward taken in the Census of India 2001 is switching over to the new technology of census data processing through use of scanners and ICR. This was a major decision as none in the country has ever used this technology for large-scale data processing. It is expected that use of this technology will bring down the census data processing cost considerably from an estimated 130 million US$ to possibly as low as 10-12 million US$ only. It is also planned to do the census processing on a hundred percent basis instead of the 10 or 20 percent sampling. Further it is expected that the census results will be released in the public domain much earlier than in the past.

5 ADMINISTRATIVE: CONSTRAINTS AND CHALLENGES

Before embarking on and taking up the worlds biggest and complex peace time administrative exercise, it is necessary to ensure that the house is in order so that necessary administrative instructions can flow to several thousands of census functionaries across the country. This in essence means that the Census Commissioner India should be in place at least two years prior to commencing of the population enumeration. However the Census Commissioner was appointed only in July 1999 giving him less than eight months to plan out, conceptualize and implement the houselisting operations. He had about fourteen months time to prepare for the population enumeration which began in Jammu and Kashmir well ahead of the rest of the country in September 2000. Since the field work is carried out with assistance eof Directors of Census Operations one of the first jobs of the Census Commissioner is to find a capable officer for each of the 35 state and union territories to head the census directorates over there.

The Directors of Census Operations, are the key persons who in a sense can make or mar the census. It is their ability to provide leadership at critical junctures, strike an extremely cordial working relationship with the state and district officials of several departments, develop a link with the press and media and his communication and oratory skills during the training of enumerators and supervisors which form the ingredients of a successful census. Since most of the action lies in the districts and through the district officials it is important that the Director has himself worked as the District Magistrate of at least on eof the districts in the state. This important exposure and experience pays rich dividends in a mammoth exercise such as census which calls for much patience, the ability to lead from front and the capacity to know the big picture while not forgetting for a moment the knitty gritty details and the small picture. The Director must also have access with the Chief Secretary and several other high ranking officials of the state government to obtain and convey to the district officials that census is an important activity requiring their due attention. Once these equations are neatly tied up and properly conveyed than census work becomes relatively easy otherwise it easily transforms itself into a nightmare even in the best administered of the states.

All the state governments were advised as early as May 1998 to send a panel of three officers of the required seniority and sufficient proven competence. Most of them either did not respond or sent a list of unwanted officers or on selection of the officer declined to relieve them for the new assignment. As result as late as July 1999, only 8 Directors had assumed their new position and even by December important states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and UP did not have the directors in position. In Madhya Pradesh, the Director withdrew in March 2000 after working for eight months. In Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir, the Directors were finally selected in January 2000.In Maharashtra, the Director joined only in May 2000 when the houselisting operations were under progress. The government of Meghalaya could not spare an officer for the census at all. The Director Assam quit the service three months prior to the population enumeration and his successor assumed office only three weeks prior to the commencement of the enumeration work. Blending these members of an heterogeneous group who had come from different administrative background, highly uneven administrative experience, commanding varying respect, authority and recognition within their own state governments and having no idea or flair for census work into a well knit, homogeneous, respectable and authoritative subject matter specialist, was quite a task. However once this was achieved through intensive interactions with each of them individually and collectively, the present set of Directors of Census delivered everything which was expected of them and have really proved to be a great asset.

Another major administrative challenge is to impress and persuading the state governments from creating new districts and sub-districts. This is an extremely important step for census taking since creation of an unambiguous frame is crucial and also for finalizing the census tabulation plans. During 1991-99 as many as 129 new districts were created and this meant recasting of the several demographic characteristics for comparing with the new districts. This is quite a backbreaking job and should not further be compounded by creation of new administrative areas even as census is to commence for then it becomes impossible to notify the correct census authorities. This can lead to a total break down in the field and create chaotic conditions leading to a massive over or undercount. All the state governments were accordingly notified well in advance in June 1999 that all the administrative boundaries would stand frozen with effect from 1st January 2000. Inspite of this instruction some state unsuccessfully tried to create new districts, towns and tassels. However there is no law which prohibits the creation of anew state. In November 2000, after the houselisting operations were already over, the Government of India created three new states. It was an unprecedented situation in the history of census and led to a breakdown in the location code scheme besides leading to a big administrative break down just as serious preparation s were underway for taking the population enumeration. Somehow the situation was salvaged but at one point of time it looked desperately hopeless.

Although the period of population enumeration for Jammu and Kashmir was finalised this had to be deferred as suddenly the militants decided to threaten the local census officials and enumerators with death threat. Ultimately with the backing of the state government, the will of the local people and the courage demonstrated by the local census officials and the enumerators census could be completed in the entire state after a gap of twenty years. Flash floods in the district f Kinnaur in Himachal Pradesh and the devastating earthquake on 26th January 2001 in Gujarat led to rescheduling the census in these natural calamity affected area. Gujarat was a particularly difficult case and there were several people who thought of postponing the census in the entire state. However it was thought fit to defer it only in the entire district of Kachchh and the four other affected tahsils. It may not be out of place to record here the several problems which had to be overcome as the state government employees responsible for census went on strike prior to commencement of census operations in the states of Bihar, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir. This jeopardized the census calendar in the states and much fire fighting was done to overcome these obstacles.

The timely printing of about 350 million census schedules and over 5 million one hundred and sixty page instruction manual for enumerators required much planning. This exercise is compounded by the fact that the census schedules are to be printed in sixteen languages and the instruction manual in eighteen languages. Since the master copy is prepared in the English language much skill and care is required to ensure its proper translation in these languages. The printing of the census schedules in regional languages pose special problems since a standard layout and design was necessary for the scanning technology. A particular problem was that whereas most of the alphabets in English language are written above the line precisely the reverse is the case for most of the Indian languages. This created problems of space in the census schedules and much time was spent on fine tuning the width of the columns for meeting the requirements of all the languages. Much logistic support was required for transporting and distributing the census material across the length and breadth of the country. Several modes of transport such as special air and helicopter sorties for inaccessible areas, rail, road were used. For many villages the only possible medium of transporting the census schedules was carrying them on foot for several days. Storing and record keeping of 228 million schedules collected after the census was over posed its own sets of problem. Special plastic covers had to be designed and given to each enumerator to carry the census schedules at the time of canvassing and while returning them. These were further backed in thick corrugated paper boxes for protection against rain, dust, heat, rats and white ants and preventing of unnecessary folding during packing.

Organizing proper census publicity using several mediums was an extremely challenging task particularly in view of the limited publicity budget and the fact that television and radio were no longer under government control. This meant spending huge funds on the radio and television publicity, which are very costly affairs. Among the challenges in organizing census publicity was how to keep it in spotlight in view of the massive publicity pulse polio campaign, which had preceded the census. Similarly the tragic earthquake in Gujarat on 26th January 2001 just two weeks prior to the population enumeration through the census publicity out of gear and several adjustment had to be made at a very short notice. To overcome the constraints of budget census enumeration was launched by enumeration of the dignitaries such as the President, Vice-President and the Prime minister of India and of the Governors and Chief Ministers in full media glare on the first day of the census. These events were widely covered through out the country at prime times on all news channels of radio and television as also made head lines in the newspapers and have free publicity worth thousands of dollars at no extra cost. This is one of the advantages of enumeration by the canvassing method.

In addition 9th February 2001, the first day of census taking, was celebrated as the Census Day and mass campaigns were taken for affixing the sticker bearing the census logo. A special census stamp was released marking the first census of the twenty-first century. The special approaches to census publicity involved use of stickers, organizing cycle rallies, census quiz contest on the internet and among several schools and women groups, street plays on census themes, song and musical numbers, essay competition and debates etc. The President, the Prime Mister, the Governors and the Chief Minister gave special message urging the people to participate whole heartedly in the census process. In addition various personalities such the Noble laureate Prof. Amartya Sen and several other popular and respectable personalities in the field of literature, business and commerce, sports and films and social activists gave messages supporting census. In short through various publicity measures a mood of festivity was created and sustained throughout the census period.

Finally over 10,000 census help centers and help lines across the country were opened to provide instant assistance to the enumerators. These were subsequently towards the closing day of census were opened for public to record any complaint they may have regarding the coverage of census. A toll free Census telephone help line for the public was opened to register their grievances and for taking immediate follow up action. These measures helped in improving both the coverage and quality of census as all the census officials were kept on their toes.

CONCLUSIONS

T o sum up inspite of the hundreds of constraints and challenges which the census faces they can be overcome by a well thought out plan and the leadership provided right at the top by the person in charge of conducting the country’s census. The financial constraints can be largely overcome by cost cutting in data processing and collection. By increasing the scope of the census enquiry and creative thinking leading to collection and presentation of more data- for example, the slum data- at no extra cost. Better value against the money spent will definitely force both the national governments and the donor countries to give the necessary budget support. Certain other measures such getting free publicity can also help in reducing the census costs and make them happen every decade without any interruption if some creative thinking is done by the top executives of the census organizations.

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