Census process expected to begin next year

The process of conducting the census, a decadal exercise that has been delayed on account of the global Covid-19 pandemic which struck in 2020, is expected to begin next year, said people aware of the details.
The decennial exercise was expected to take place in 2020-21 but the government has claimed that it has been delayed due to the pandemic.
According to people aware of the details, the process of tabulating the country’s population will begin in 2025 and is expected to conclude by 2026, following which the process of carving out constituencies for the Lok Sabha through delimitation will begin. The delimitation itself is expected to be completed by 2028, ahead of the 2029 Lok Sabha polls, the person familiar with the development added.
The women’s reservation bill passed by Parliament will also come into effect after the next census and the delimitation exercise, one of the persons said.
Although there is a pressing demand from the Opposition to carry out caste-based enumeration for better reach of resources to the disadvantaged communities within the existing SC, ST and OBC quotas; there is no word on whether population count will also earmark castes.
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According to a person aware of the details, there is a provision for individuals to mark their “sects” in the enumeration forms.
“For instance, there are Ravidasis, Rammanis, Ahmadis, Anand Margis and Bairagais. There is a provision to denote these sects,” said the person quoted above.
The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), which has built its electoral edifice on social engineering or the formula of giving representation to different castes particularly those counted as socially and economically disadvantaged has also been pushed to take a stand on the issue of caste census.
The party was initially ambiguous about its position on the issue but has had to rethink after its allies such as the Lok Jan Shakti Party and the Janata Dal United have expressed support for caste-based enumeration.
The BJP’s ideological fount, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has articulated that while it does not oppose castes census, it is against the exercise being used for political purposes.
The issue of census is also politically significant as the next delimitation exercise hinges on the outcome of the latest count.
According to the directive of the Delimitation Commission of India, that has the mandate to drawing the boundaries of legislative assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies based on the last census, the next delimitation can be held only after 2026.
The opposition parties, including the BJP’s ally the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) have been seeking better representation for the southern states by way of delimitation. They have pointed out if the delimitation is carried out based on population, the southern states would stand to lose as their population is lower than that of the Hindi heartland states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.
“Following the 84th amendment to the Constitution, in 2002, the delimitation was to be done after 2026, based on the first census conducted after 2026. There is a laid down process and structure that has to be followed,” said one of the persons quoted above.
On the opposition raising concerns about the population, this person said, “As per the laid down procedure all constituencies as far as practicable, have to be geographically compact areas, and physical features, existing boundaries of administrative units, facilities of communication and public convenience are also considered”.
A second BJP leader said the apprehension that the government will earmark constituencies to benefit the BJP are “meaningless” as the process of delimitation is “bound by rules”.
“In the past when the delimitation was carried out there were murmurs of discontent over how constituencies such as Firozabad and Gorakhpur were carved out… it was considered to be inimical to BJP’s interests,” the leader said.
Union home minister Amit Shah had said in September that the decadal census exercise will be conducted “soon” and a decision, if any, on caste census will be conveyed at an appropriate time.
In the absence of fresh data, the government agencies are still formulating policies and allocating subsidies based on the data of the 2011 census.
The house listing phase of the census and the exercise to update the National Population Register (NPR) were scheduled to be carried out across the country from April 1 to September 30, 2020, but it was postponed due to the Covid outbreak.
The entire census and the NPR exercise is likely to cost the government more than ₹12,000 crore, according to officials who didn’t want to be named.
However, the government reduced the budget for Census 2021 from ₹3,768 crore in 2021-22 to ₹1,309 crore in the union budget 2024-25.
The Census 2021 will be the first digital census giving the citizens an opportunity to self-enumerate. The NPR has been made compulsory for citizens who want to exercise the right to fill the census form on their own rather than through government enumerators. For this, the census authority has designed a self-enumeration portal which is yet to be launched.