New Delhi: The 2021 Census will be the first digital census in the country and there is a provision for self-enumeration. “The forthcoming census is to be the first digital census and there is a provision for self-enumeration,” Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai informed the Parliament on Tuesday.

A mobile App for collection of data and a census portal for management and monitoring of various census-related activities have been developed, the Minister said in Lok Sabha. He said due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 census and other related field activities have been postponed until further orders.

The Minister informed the House that the questionnaire for the first phase of census was notified in the gazette of India. He said the individual data collected in census under the Census Act are not made public.

Rai said special emphasis is given on scientifically designing the census questions for faster processing and early release of data. A decadal exercise to enumerate the country’s population, census in India is one of the largest administrative and statistical exercises in the world.

The exercise requires visiting every household across the country for enumeration and involves the services of three million employees. First conducted in 1872, the census is the largest repository of the nation’s people, covering everything from demographics like age, gender and marital status, to housing and economic activity.

Data is collected on demographic and various socio-economic parameters like education, SC/ST, religion, language, marriage, fertility,  disability, occupation and migration of the individuals. As a source of primary data at the household, village and town levels, it plays a huge part in the planning and formulation of Government policies, social and economic research and business strategies.

How will this work?

Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Greenland, Bahrain, Estonia, USA, UK, Vietnam and Swaziland are some nations that have undertaken a digital census. The mammoth nationwide exercise will be carried out in 16 languages and at a cost of Rs. 12,000 crore. 

An individual can fill in the details using relevant codes for each field in case of self-enumeration. An identification number will be sent on the registered number of the individual after self-enumeration. The data will then be synced once the number is shared with the enumerator.

School teachers will double up as enumerators to collect the data. Earlier, enumerators used to visit every household and fill a form. As per estimates, India will be using 30 lakh enumerators for the census.