New Census to Estimate India's Poor with Caste, Religion


New Delhi, May 19 (IANS) A far-reaching nationwide census in India will identify people below the poverty line with parameters to exclude families that own a vehicle, a concrete house or a fixed phone, as also when any member is a government employee or earns above Rs.10,000 per month.

A meeting of the cabinet, presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, approved the conduct of the census, which will also take a head counts for various caste and religious groups in the country with the primary aim of reaching welfare schemes only to the needy.

"The union cabinet approved the conduct of below poverty line census in both rural and urban areas," Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni told reporters here, referring to the earlier practice of conducting such an exercise only in the hinterland.

The census on caste and religion will also take place simultaneously, the minister said. "The results of the census will be utilised in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-13 to 2016-17)," said Soni.

"This completely fulfils the assurance given by the government in parliament to have caste-based census along with the socio-economic profiling. Political leaders demanded this," she added. The findings will also help in extending the Food Security Act that promises subsidised grain to the poor.

Officials said as per their estimates 41.8 percent of India's rural population was poor, with 4.2 percent constituting the transient poor due to their seasonal migration or other factors. India's population is 1.21 billion.

As per the new census, those who will be out of the poverty line ambit are:

* Housholds with motorised vehicles or boats

* Households with members being government employees

* Households with a fridge

* Households with landline phones

* Households with any member with monthly income over Rs.10,000

* Households with shelter with pucca walls

For the first time, the survey, which takes place every five years, will include urban households. The exercise will be carried out jointly by the ministries of rural development and housing and urban poverty alleviation, and the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India.

The principal opposition Bharatiya Janta Party expressed hope that the survey will bring clarity to the issue of identifying the poor.

"We hope after this survey, the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government will be able to tell how many BPL ffamilies there are in the country, because there is a contradiction within their own government and they have two to three versions," said BJP spokesperson, Nirmala Sitharaman.

According to sources, the urban poor has been included for survey in line with the government's ambitious plan for slum-free India.

The previous surveys were conducted in 1992, 1997 and 2002. The last one was supposed to have been done in 2007, but it could not be conducted due to a court case, which was vacated only in 2006.

The survey is expected to begin June and will be wrapped up by December, officials said. Around 14 lakh enumerators and data collectors will be involved in the mammoth process and will fan out across the country.

The exercise will be largely paperless, and a low cost tablet personal computer, manufactured by state-run Bharat Electronics Limited, will be used by the enumerator to directly input the data, which will be then uploaded into the database.

As per the officials, the information on BPL families will have to be made public, so that they can take advantage of benefits. "But, the caste and religion will remain confidential and will be passed on to the registrar general," he said.

This survey will link the BPL list to the National Population Register (NPR), which will be eventually linked to the Unique Identification Number (UID) project.

  

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Title: New Census to Estimate India's Poor with Caste, Religion



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