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GOI should focus on conducting a thorough Census & not give in to caste census politics

GOI said it has initiated the process for conducting the Census, with a formal announcement likely soon. This hopefully brings down the curtains on the ‘Waiting for Census’ play. Census 2021 is long behind schedule. The onset of pandemic in 2020 was held up as the reason for the delay earlier. But, while national censuses were impacted by Covid globally, India is among just three countries, as per UN Population Fund’s Global Census Tracker, where a fresh schedule for the exercise is yet to be announced. Even now, there’s no certainty when the latest Census findings will be released, since it has taken 11 months in the past after the start of its first phase for the process to be completed. If there is a silver lining here, it is that India is going for its first digital Census, with there also being a provision for self-enumeration.

A data crisis | The delay in Census has had serious implications for implementation of policy, as it is the only source of benchmark data for a host of metrics that measure socio-economic conditions in India. The reliance on outdated 2011 Census figures by India has impacted vital data sets relating to health, demography and economy, besides taking a toll on quality of surveys by National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), among others. For instance, it is estimated that as many as 11cr Indians are being denied benefits under the Food Security Act, since beneficiaries are still counted as per 2011 Census. There is also the delimitation of parliamentary constituencies that can happen only after the Census is conducted. And linked to delimitation is the implementation of the landmark women’s reservation law.

Say no to caste census | What evokes concern after Sunday’s announcement is GOI being “open” to a caste census. The change in its stance is clearly a concession to electoral pressures, which saw opposition demand for a caste census gain traction in 2024 LS elections. Yielding on this front, however, will end up skewing India’s political discourse and lead to demands for greater affirmative action in govt sector, with potentially huge ramifications for public policy. Reserving more and more of a limited number of govt jobs cannot be the way forward for the 7-8mn young Indians estimated to enter the job market every year. We need to create employment in the private sector to deal with the jobs crisis. And conducting Census quickly and using its findings to rework our policies would be the first step in that direction.

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