Mysuru/Mysore: The Seventh Economic Census, conducted by the Central Government’s Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), has kicked off in Mysuru district and city. The enumerators will visit every house for the survey and  classify them in the category of residential, residential commercial, commercial, industrial, etc. 

In Karnataka, the Census was launched by Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Nov. 6, 2019. Officials said that none of the houses will be skipped by the enumerators who will be doing their job with the help of tablets and applications. All that citizens have to do is verify the identity of the person coming to their home for the Census and provide them information about the economic activities being conducted in the house or the establishment. 

Current economic activity 

The Census is aimed at getting current economic activity, employment and self-employment, kind of employment or businesses being carried out by the individuals and such others which will be analysed to get the exact picture of the economic development in the City, District, State and Country.

The Census is being conducted Nationwide through Common Services Centres (CSCs) and is expected to be completed by March 2020. For the first time, the entire Census is being conducted on a digital platform — under Digital India — by the use of an application which will ensure high accuracy and data security. A mobile app has been released for the same for the first time in Mysuru. 

Data about profession, business

Under the survey, enumerators will collect data about profession, industry (small scale, large, medium and home-based) business, real estate land income, agriculture, trade and commerce, buying and selling distribution and all other source of income. Data will be collected from both urban and rural areas and from organised and unorganised sectors. 

In the Sixth Economic Census conducted in 2014 in Mysuru, in all, 1,40,232 professions and businesses were listed and of them, 88,062 were from rural areas and 52,170 from urban areas. 

Six Economic Censuses held so far 

Started in 1977, only six economic censuses have been done so far due to massive work involving in-depth survey and data compilation. This is the first time when the economic census is being done using digital platform which has reduced time for survey to 6 months from 2 years earlier. Over 1.5 lakh trained enumerators have been deployed for the Nationwide exercise.

The Economic Census is crucial for framing of policies and planning for the Government and other organisations. It will provide disaggregated information on various operational and structural aspects of all establishments in the country. The Census will provide valuable insights into geographical spread and clusters of economic activities, ownership pattern and persons engaged of the establishments.

MCC launches mobile app 

The mobile app was launched by Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) Commissioner Gurudatta Hegde at the MCC Council Hall yesterday. Speaking on the occasion, he said the enumerators and supervisors who conduct door-to-door survey of houses and commercial establishments to collect data have also been given the task to clear misconception that the Census is linked to CAA, NRC or NPR. 

The Common Services Centre (CSC) in Mysuru has hired 220 supervisors and 890 enumerators who have been trained to collect data on the mobile app. The Census will be conducted block-wise and each block will have 66 investigator units and each unit will have nearly 400 households and 2,000 people.

MCC Additional Commissioner Shivananda Murthy and others were present at the app launch.