NEW DELHI: The population enumeration phase of Census 2027 — which will capture caste for the first time since 1931, and most likely also record the date and birthplace of parents, along with the respondent’s passport number (where available) and Aadhaar number (voluntary) — will start in Ladakh and the snow-bound areas, J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand on August 17.A home ministry notification on Monday said the population enumeration exercise in snow-bound areas of the four northern states/UTs will run from Sept 1 to 30, preceded by a self-enumeration window of August 17-30. This means that the questionnaire for Phase 2 of Census will also be notified soon.According to sources, caste will be recorded ‘as declared by the respondent’. There will be a drop-down menu for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, while the ‘caste’ field will only cater to those in non-SC, non-ST category. The drop-down menu will only show the SC/ST list of the state where the respondent is being enumeratedThe spelling of the declared ‘caste’ will be recorded as cited by the respondent. No document or caste certificate is required to be shown to verify one’s SC, ST or ‘caste’ status. An officer said while the self-declaration template followed for the socio-economic caste census (SECC) in 2011 had thrown up over 45,000 castes, making the data unusable, modern digital tools and AI can now surmount compilation and segregation challenges.Census Phase 2, in a first, , will collect the date and place of birth of parents, the key factors that determine citizenship/nationality. The national population register (NPR) exercise — conducted alongside Census 2011, intended to be repeated with Census 2021 before it was postponed, but now delinked from Census 2027 — had in 2010 collected details of nationality as declared by the respondent, with the rider that it would not confer any right of citizenship.Sources said the respondents will not be asked for proof of birth details of parents and these would be recorded “to the best knowledge of the respondent”. In fact, where the respondents do not know the exact date of birth of parents but only the year, a default date like January 1 of that year will be accepted.The Phase 2 questionnaire will also log passport details where available. Aadhaar number will be collected on a voluntary basis.“The purpose of collecting the birth data of parents is to know the total number of people who meet citizenship criteria based on their declaration, even though unverified. It will have no impact on the individual as the Census Act does not allow individual data to be used for “legal evidence, govt benefits or public disclosure,” said an officer.Self-enumeration option for Phase 2, unlike Phase 1, may allow users to submit partially-filed enumeration forms, provided a minimum number of questions are answered. “There is a realisation that even if some data fields are self-enumerated, the task of the enumerator becomes easier and less time-consuming,” said an officer.
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As per convention, the population enumeration exercise — which records individual data like marital status, religion, SC/ST status, occupation, migration and fertility, besides arriving at the country’s headcount — is conducted nationwide in February of the census reference year. However, it is advanced in pockets that face extreme cold and inclement weather during this window.
