Creating comprehensive identity database, conduct of Census of India 2021 and NPR updation approved

New Delhi, December 27: To create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country the Union Cabinet has approved the proposal for conducting Census of India 2021 at a cost of Rs. 8,754.23 crore and updating of National Population Register (NPR) at a cost of Rs. 3,941.35 crore.

 

It will cover the entire population in the country while NPR will also cover all the population except in the state of Assam. It will be conducted in two phases like house listing and housing Census - April to September 2020 and Population Enumeration - 9th February to 28th February 2021.

30 lakh field functionaries will complete this gigantic exercise of national importance, up from 28 lakh in 2011.

The use of a mobile app for data collection and the Central portal for monitoring purposes will ensure the early release of Census data with improved quality.

Census-as-a-service (CaaS) will deliver on-demand data to ministries in a clean, machine-readable and actionable format.

Let us see the benefits:

All the data would be put for use of all stakeholders and users including Ministries, Departments, State Governments, research organizations etc.

Data sharing to all, up to the lowest Administrative Unit i.e. Village/Ward level.

Block-level data of Enumeration to Delimitation Commission for delimitation of the Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies.

Transfer of honorarium etc. to the Census functionaries for the Census & NPR related work directly to their bank accounts using Public Financial Management System (PFMS) and Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) covering more than 60% of the total expenditure.

One of the major outcomes of these two mammoth exercises will be direct as well as indirect employment generation across India including the far-flung areas. This will be in addition to the payment of honorarium to Census functionaries for additional work undertaken by them for Census and NPR. Approximately 48,000 manpower will be engaged for about 2,900 days at the local levels. In other words, around 2.4 crore man-days employment would be generated. Further, the provision of technical manpower at Charge/ District/ State level will also result in capacity building as the nature of the job will be related to data collection including digital mode and coordination. This will also help in the future employment prospects of these persons.

Implementation strategy and targets:

The Census process involves visiting each and every household and canvassing separate questionnaires for House listing and Housing Census and Population Enumeration.

The enumerators, generally government teachers and appointed by the State Governments, will be doing the work of NPR along with the Census in addition to their regular duties.

Other Census functionaries at Sub-district, District and State levels will also be appointed by the State/District Administration.