It’s time to go for the next census

Udayan Hazarika

(The writer can be reached at udayanhazarika@hotmail.com)

The government at the centre is now all set to present the regular budget for the financial year 2024–25. The finance minister is expected to present her budget on the first day of the monsoon session of Parliament, which will most likely take place on July 22. Prior to that, the special session of the Lok Sabha will commence from June 24th until July 3rd. The session is expected to mark a host of interesting events, beginning with the elections of the speaker and deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha. This time, people are taking keen interest in the election of speakers, and as a result, there are already debates about many ifs and buts, taking into account the strategy that the ruling party is going to adopt. If everything goes well, the government should then spare some time to give serious thought to conducting census operations as soon as possible. It is the sacred duty of the government to conduct census operations every ten years, which not only update the country’s baseline data but also help in taking appropriate policy decisions by the government. The 2021 census could not be held due to the precarious situation prevailing in the country generated by the spread of COVID-19. In the absence of census data, people are now using the projected population data published by the technical committee of the health and family welfare department. But the projected data cannot be equivalent to the census data, and it has only limited use.

Deciding about conducting census operations is an issue for the Union government. The detailed guidelines regarding census operations are laid down in the Indian Census Act of 1948. Under Section 3 of the Act, conducting censuses is a statutory duty of the central government. Although the Act has not specified any specific date or time for taking the census, so far in our 150-year’ history of census operations, it has been a convention to take the census every ten years. This is the first time that the exception has occurred, and India could not conduct the 17th census operations in time. Initially, the office of the Registrar General of India (ORGI) issued notifications for conducting Census 2021 in time. The caste populace of the country was upbeat about this census, as Home Minister Rajnath Singh announced in 2018 that the caste data would be collected side by side during the 2021 census operation. But unfortunately, the term of the 17th Lok Sabha came to an end in 2019, and after the elections, although the BJP came to power, they finally decided not to go for a caste census. Accordingly, the government has come out with the declaration that there will be no caste census along with the 17th Census operations. However, the sudden outbreak of the COVID pandemic in 2020 forced the government to keep the whole process of the census operation in abeyance. While this is the case with India, there are, however, at least four countries, including China, where the census was conducted in 2020–21.

The fact that the government is working on the process of censusing can be known when the administrative boundaries of districts, subdivisions, etc. are frozen for a definite period. Rule 8(iv) of the Census Rule 1990 empowers the States and Union Territories to issue notifications about the freezing of the administrative boundaries of districts, tehsils, towns, etc. from the date to be intimated by the Census Commissioner. This order is issued not earlier than one year from the reference date of the census and remains in operation until the completion of the census.  In exercise of this power, the ORGI issued on the 6th of January a letter extending the date of freezing the administrative boundaries until January 1, 2024. Earlier, on eight occasions, this date was extended. Usually, three months after the terminal date of freezing, the census operation takes place. In that case, the census house listing should have taken place by October 2023 last year. But this did not happen. Against this backdrop, the ORGI doesn’t seem to be interested at all in conducting the census in 2024 and will attempt to seek a date between January and July 2025 to hold the census, for which freezing notification will have to be renewed. The Indian Census is a huge affair involving crores of rupees. Now that the government is preparing for the presentation of the regular budget, they are expected to allocate funds for conducting the census, which will amount to more than Rs 10,000 crore. Only thereafter will the process start. Thus, a budget provision of anything more than Rs 5,000 crore under the appropriate head of account will be indicative of the fact that the government is preparing itself for the conduct of the census. A government decision to this extent follows the freezing of the boundaries of administrative units—from the village and upward, both existing and updated.

ORGI then prepares an initial plan for house listing with these data. Usually, the house listing phase requires more than six months’ time. But in this census, the information will be directly entered into the website for each house. The enumerators will carry with them the necessary apparatuses, such as tablets, mobiles, laptops, etc. Moreover, by amending the relevant rules — namely, Rules 2 and 5 of the Census Rules 1990—i 2022, the government has now enabled “self-enumeration,” by which the respondents can fill out the census forms themselves. 

Another hazard in connection with conducting the census operation will be the implementation of the government’s decision on updating the National Population Registrar (NPR). The NPR was first prepared in 2010 and later updated in 2015, adding some new entries. This time, the government announced updating the NPR side by side with the Census 2021. But several non-BJP-ruled states have objected to it. Although no final decision about this updating has been announced by the government yet, the recent annual report (2021–22) of the Home Ministry, published in November 2022, has advocated the updating. If the government decides in favour of updating the NPR, then it is to be done at the stage of complete enumeration.

The whole process of census taking needs at least one year, and only thereafter will provisional population figures be available. The break-up of the population into various social categories and workers and the related preparation of final tables will take further time. In fact, by the time the final religious tables start coming up, say in 2027, the government will be busy preparing for the next census operation in 2031. Considering this, the government may finally decide to concentrate on preparing only the core tables for this census. This would only mean that we have missed the Census of 2021, and the data we get in 2025 and after is evidently not the data of 2021. However, as announced by the government, if the census is taken digitally, most of the provisional tables will be available by July–August 2025. In that case, there will be a deviation of a maximum of four or four and a half years from the actual date on which the census for 2021 should have been taken.