Census 2011 set to begin today

Representatives from Indian census will soon start knocking on your doors, as the second phase of Census 2011 is set to begin from February 9. Census 2011 will be the 15th national census of the country. The government has also decided to prepare a National Population Register (NPR).

After successfully completing the first phase of census — the houselisting and housing census from April to September 2010—the second phase called the population enumeration will be conducted simultaneously across the country, starting today to February 28.

Spread across 35 states and Union territories, the census would cover 640 districts, 5,767 tehsils, 7,742 towns, and more than 6 lakh villages. More than 24 crore households will be visited during this exercise. To carry out this massive exercise, over 27 lakh people have been engaged.

The details required for the NPR was also collected during the first phase of the census. The NPR will be a comprehensive identity database that would help in better targeting of the benefits and services under government schemes/programmes. It will also improve planning and help strengthen the security of the country. The two exercises of the census and NPR are estimated to cost the exchequer slightly less than Rs6,000 crore. About 12,000 metric tonnes of paper will be used for printing 64 crore census forms and 50 lakh instruction manuals. The census forms are printed in 16 languages and the instruction manuals in 18 languages.