Census: President Prathiba Patil enumerated

The second phase of the country’s 15th census began on Wednesday with the enumeration of president Pratibha Patil.

The population enumeration phase, as it has been named, will be held simultaneously across the country till February 28.

The exercise, in which 640 districts, 5,767 tehsils, 7,742 towns and more than 6 lakh villages will be covered, would be completed by March 5.

The first phase called house listing and housing census, was held between April and September last year.

A team led by census commissioner C Chandramouli oversaw the beginning of phase-II at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The decadal exercise for India’s an estimated 1.17 billion population began with collection information on a “number of characteristics about the president’s personal household” by enumerator Rita, an official spokesperson said.

Interestingly, it will not address the citizenship issue, although the presence of a variety of displaced persons living in the country will also be recorded.

The government has clarified that census has nothing to do with determining citizenship or granting the privilege to an individual or group while allaying fears that illegal migrants from Bangladesh might benefit.