The last government of India census was conducted in 2011, and the next exercise was to have taken place in 2021. The government could not meet the 2021 timeline because of the Covid pandemic. But unfortunately, the census exercise continues to be delayed even when other pandemic-related restrictions have been lifted in the country. Why has the government put the census on hold and how has it impacted us? Hear this Podumentary out!
Speakers:
Avani Kapur
Senior Fellow
Centre for Policy Research
Mala Ramanathan
Professor, Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology
PC Mohanan
Former Acting Chairperson
National Statistical Commission
Sonalde Desai
Professor | Director
NCAER - National Data Innovation Centre, Delhi
Udaya Shankar Mishra
Professor
Centre For Development Studies
Produced below are the abridged version of the transcripts of our Podumentary (audio documentary) titled: Why has the government put the census on hold?
The last government of India census was conducted in 2011, and the next exercise was to have taken place in 2021. The government could not meet the 2021 timeline because of the Covid pandemic. But unfortunately, the census exercise continues to be delayed even when other pandemic-related restrictions have been lifted in the country.
Currently, there is no clarity on when the next census exercise will be concretely held. Earlier, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai told the Parliament that all census-related activities have been “postponed till further orders” due to the pandemic. Avani Kapur, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, finds that India lags on too many counts because of the missing census data.
“It is useful to remind ourselves of the different aspects measured with a national census. Firstly, the census gives a sense of the total number of people in a country at a specific point in time. And while there are population projections, the census would provide you with an accurate number by age, by sex of the total number of people in the country. It also gives a sense of the standard of living. Right now, in India, we don’t have any recent poverty estimates. But through the census, by looking at the measures of assets that people have, you could get a sense of the standard of living of the population in the country. Census also gives you a sense of urbanisation. The census is also one of the few sources with migration data.”
Reports reveal that nearly 100 million people are being excluded from the government’s food subsidy programme as the population figures used to calculate the number of beneficiaries of the scheme are still based on the old 2011 census data. The government has notified that the next census will be India’s first digital census.
Udaya Shankar Mishra, a Professor with the Centre For Development Studies, says the broken census pattern would require a lot of computations, and therefore this exercise cannot be delayed any further. "Conducting periodic census is a must and because of the broken pattern of our census, we would now have to do a lot of computations to adjust it to the period 2021 for comparison purposes."
The lack of data has already started impacting the government’s policies and execution. Many of the schemes of the government are based on the 2011 census data. The increase in population, coupled with the problem of lack of statistical data, has led to the exclusion of many people from accessing government schemes. Mala Ramanathan, Professor with the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology says the government must allocate adequate resources for census exercise and perhaps a meticulously planned digital census could lead the way.