Any further delay in Census taking is perilous

Any further delay in Census taking is perilous

Subject: Polity

Sec: Msc

Context:

When the Centre did not extend the deadline of June 30, 2024 to freeze administrative boundaries for the purpose of the Census, hopes were raised that the decennial Census operations, initially scheduled to begin in 2020 as a prelude to Census 2021, would at least commence in October 2024.

An absolute necessity:

• Conducting the Census on a priority basis is a must, as in the absence of a Census after 2011, a majority of our country’s population is unable to access several schemes, benefits and services.
• Moreover, the implementation of the women’s Reservation Act passed in the Parliament last year, reserving 33% of seats in Parliament and Assemblies for women, awaits the conduct of the Census.
• It is imperative that sufficient provisions are made in the 2025-26 Census Budget so that the 2021 Census that has been postponed could be held at the earliest, in 2026, on completion of the first phase in 2025 that would include house listing and housing census and updating of the National Population Register (NPR).
• The preliminary arrangements for the Census, such as preparing updated maps and lists of administrative areas, pre-testing draft Census questionnaires, training of officers and core staff, who would train the large number of field staff in collecting the Census data digitally, i.e., on mobile app, planning the field work, logistics, budgeting have all been taking place in the Census Directorates in States and Union Territories for the past few years in anticipation of putting through a Census.
• The Constitution (Eighty fourth Amendment) Act of 2001 was specifically made so as not to have delimitation of the constituencies till the first Census conducted after 2026.

Clarifications:

• To create a comprehensive database of usual residents in the country, the NPR with details of persons usually residing in villages and towns and other rural and urban areas was first prepared in 2010 during the Houselisting and Housing Census phase of Census 2011. It was updated in 2015 incorporating changes due to birth, death and migration. This process was put through under the Citizenship Act, 1955.

Delimitation:

• Delimitation means the process of fixing the number of seats and boundaries of territorial constituencies in each State for the Lok Sabha and Legislative assemblies.
  • It also includes determining the seats to be reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST)in these houses.
• This ‘delimitation process’ is performed by the “Delimitation Commission” that is set up under an act of Parliament.
  • Delimitation Commissions have been set up four times — 1952, 1963, 1973 and 2002under the Acts of 1952, 1962, 1972 and 2002.
    • The first delimitation exercise was carried out by the President (with the help of the Election Commission) in 1950-51.

• The 84^th Amendment Act of 2001 empowered the government to undertake readjustment and rationalisation of territorial constituencies in the states on the basis of the population figures of 1991 census.

National Population Register:

• NPR is a database containing a list of all usual residents of the country.
  • A usual resident for the purposes of NPR is a person who has resided in a place for six months or more and intends to reside there for another six months or more.
• Its objective is to have a comprehensive identity database of people residing in the country.
  • It is generated through house-to-house enumeration during the “house-listing” phase of the Census.
• NPR was first collected in 2010. It was updated in 2015 and already has details of 119 crore residents.
  • In March 2020, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) amended the Census Rules framed in 1990 to capture and store the Census data in an electronic form and enabled self-enumeration by respondents.