India About to Embark on Its Census
NEW DELHI: In a few weeks an army of 1.8 million people will fan out from the frozen Himalayas to the sultry shores of Great Nicobar Island to complete one of the world’s most challenging jobs: a national census for India.
In a country that is likely to nudge out China as the world’s most populous nation sometime in the next century taking a census means visiting 600000 villages countless city slums and thousands of scattered small communities speak hundreds of indigenous dialects. Census forms takers are printed in 16 major languages.
“No neighborhood has been over-looked” A.R. Nanda the Register General and Census Commissioner said as he explained how the map had already been divided into nearly two million administrative segments to calculate the location of “households” to be visited.
“Even if they are unauthorized encroachers living on the pavements we have given them a number” Mr. Nanda said. “We have gone into the remotest densest forest areas and listed the smallest huts.”
India whose last census was in 1981 is thought to have a population of about 850 million growing at about 2% annually. Demographers who think the true growth rate may be higher are fond of saying Indians produce “another Australia” every year.
Apart from its population size and diversity India has other characteristics that make its census-taking different from the one just completed in the United States. One of them is attitude.
“There is no resistance here to questions about religion or caste” Mr. Nanda said in an interview in his office here. He has spent more than two decades in census-taking from the grass roots up.
Indians are also asked whether they are literate an important issue in a country where two-thirds of the people cannot read or write. Because many census-takers are teachers Mr. Nanda said they are welcomed in village homes as honored guests.
In the cities he said “the biggest problem is that people are always out or are in too much of a hurry.”
It takes between 30 and 45 minutes to complete both the individual form for each resident interviewed and the longer form collating information from each household. A third form circulated on behalf of a national human resources survey will be given this year to anyone who is a college graduate or has professional training. It can be completed and mailed later.
Census takers who are being trained in January and begin work on Feb.9 either volunteer for the job or are assigned to it. A small honorarium of about $35 to $40 covers both training and census taking. But outstanding enumerators can win medals presented by the President.
“Census-taking is considered a form of national service here “Mr. Nanda said. “Anyone can be asked to take part and cannot refuse under the law.”
India’s “point of reference” for the 1991 census will be sunrise on March 1. Enumerators will collect data with that date in mind from Feb.9 to Feb.28. The night of Feb.28-March 1 will be saved for a last-minute count of the homeless and other itinerant street-dollars. From March 1 to March 5 checks of earlier data will be made.
Mr Nanda said that India follows an “extended de facto” system of census-taking. It counts anyone who is or would be normally resident on March 1 in a household (defined by the use of a common kitchen) regardless of” nationality or relationship to others living there.
“If someone is abroad we don’t count him even if he is a de jure member of the family” Mr. Nanda said. “But someone from abroad living here is counted. There is no question of citizenship or nationality.”
Census has been conducted every 10 years in India since 1881 when the British were the colonial administrators. Mr. Nanda is confident that the system is so well established that the margin of error can be reduced this year from the 1.7% undercount in 1981.
Mr. Nanda said this year’s census will make a special effort to focus on women who are in many ways under-privileged and subject to discrimination in India. With the help of the United Nations Fund for Women’s Activities television spots have been prepared by prominent women in films and public life to urge villagers to think about the economic activity of mothers and other female family members.
Twenty percent of the: census takers are By Barbara Crossett.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 25, 1991
