With the decennial Census exercise beginning from Wednesday in Orissa, the citizens of the state need to adopt a cautious approach and furnish only accurate information as detection of any erroneous information can lead to imprisonment for at least three years.
Appealing the citizens of the state to provide accurate information, S N Patra, the state minister for revenue and disaster management said, “One has to answer about 36 queries for the Census survey and the people should try to give accurate details. The Census official can also be jailed if he is found guilty of recording fake data.”
The minister was on a visit to Ganjam and Gajapati districts of south Orissa to review revenue related works.
The government of India will maintain secrecy of data furnished by the people and the data will help the government in its future planning, said a government official.
Besides recording the population, the Census-2011 will also record the socio-economic status of the families like availability of mobiles and computers with internet connection (if any) in the households of around four crore people in the state.
Till now, details about radio, televisions, telephones, bicycles and motor vehicles have been recorded.
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This apart, the finger prints and photographs of every person above 15 years of age would also be taken up in the second phase of operations to provide biometric identity cards to them.
“Details about a person can be known at the click of a mouse as a result of this Census exercise which will be completed in 45 days”, Patra said.
“Around one lakh school teachers have been engaged for this task, with a supervisor being engaged for every six teachers. One teacher has to cover at least 125 households”, he pointed out.
The decadal population growth rate in the state was recorded at 16.25 percent in 2001, when the last Census was conducted in the state. The total population recorded in the state was 1,028,610,328 in 2001.
The sex ratio was recorded at 972 females per 1000 males, while population density was 236 per sq km. The literacy rate was 64.80 per cent in the last Census.