Overdue Census

The delay is disturbing

Among the many priorities before the new government, conducting the decennial Census demands urgency. The Census, which was originally due in 2021, was postponed until further orders owing to the pandemic. It is now over two years since the pandemic receded but there appears to be little sign of progress on this front. Orders for states to freeze the administrative boundaries of districts, tehsils, and towns and so on, a prerequisite for conducting the Census, have been postponed nine times. It has now been reported that a decision on the exercise has not yet been taken. Given the intense recent debates in the public discourse over welfarism and freebies and demands for a caste Census, it is unusual that the National Democratic Alliance government has not accorded priority to a consequential decennial exercise that has been postponed for the first time in 150 years, that too without visibility on a timetable.

Since the latest Census is to be in digitised form, including self-enumeration and electronic submission of data, conducting it should be less onerous or time-consuming than earlier exercises. After the world’s largest elections, conducted via electronic voting machines, a digital Census would enhance India’s reputation for its IT (information technology) prowess. Instead, India is among 120 countries that had postponed the Census on account of the pandemic. Several countries, such as China, Bangladesh, and Nepal, managed to conduct their Censuses even during the pandemic. India shares the distinction of being among 44 nations that have not conducted a Census yet; most of its peers in this respect include conflict- or crisis-ridden countries like Yemen, Myanmar, Ukraine, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and some countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The importance of a demographic exercise as intensive as the Census in a vast economically and culturally diverse country like India cannot be overstated. For one, it gives basic information, such as the size of the population. According to the United Nations data, India has surpassed China to become the world’s most populous country with 1.4 billion people. The irony of this is that the Indian government has no official update on the size of its population. On account of an indefinite delay on holding the Census, India’s official population count still stands at 1.2 billion. Important national surveys like the Consumption Survey, National Family Health Survey, coverage of the Food Security Act, an understanding of migration patterns and so on depend on updated Census data, but they currently rely on the last Census, done in 2011.

In other words, it is possible that a wide raft of welfare schemes are being wrongly targeted and underfunded, or are unnecessary — vital information that is missing for lack of an updated enumeration of the population. Without an updated Census, the 16th Finance Commission’s recommendations will be based on 13-year-old population data. The government would do well to make it clear when it plans to hold the Census. If it is done this year or the next, will it affect the timeline for the next Census? This is critical because, among other things, the delimitation exercise and implementation of women’s reservation in Parliament and Assemblies are to be based on the first Census after 2026.