For the first time in the 140-year history of Indian Census, enumerators will use a mobile app for collection of data for Census 2021, the world’s largest exercise of its kind.

Officials of the Registrar General of India disclosed this at a conference with data users to finalise the strategy and a questionnaire for the next Census. The officials said enumerators would be encouraged to use their own
mobile phone for which they would be paid appropriate remuneration or
else they would have the option to collect and record the data through
paper schedules, to be eventually submitted by them electronically.

Describing the Census 2021 as the world’s largest such exercise, Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba said 33 lakh enumerators would be mobilised for data collection for which a notification has already been issued.

The reference date is 1 October 2020 for Jammu & Kashmir and snow-bound areas of Himachal Pradesh & Uttarakhand, and 1 March 2021 for the rest of the country.

Gauba said Census was not just an exercise of head count but provided invaluable socio-economic data to form a credible basis for informed policy formulation and allocation of resources. “The changing demographics and socio-economic parameters reflected by the Census helps in reformulation of country’s plans for the economic development and welfare schemes for its people,” he said.

Besides, Gauba added, the Census data catered to the Constitutional requirement of delimitation of constituencies and reservation of seats for SCs & STs.

Urging caution while using technology for data collection in Census 2021, he stressed on maintenance of data confidentiality. He asked the participants – representatives from Ministries of Central and State governments, academic institutions and international organisations — to deliberate on the strategy and questionnaire for the census to maximise the benefits from this exercise.

Registrar General of India and Census Commissioner Vivek Joshi said Census 2021 would have two phases. The first phase would have house-listing operations in any two months chosen by the states between April and September, 2020.

In the second phase, the actual population enumeration would be done between 9 and 28 February 2021, followed by the Revision round from
1 – 5 March 2021. In Jammu and Kashmir and snow-bound areas of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, Joshi said, population enumeration would be conducted during 11- 30 September 2020, followed by a revision round from 1 – 5 October 2020. The data users conference was the first formal interaction of the Census organisation with various stakeholders.