Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi
New Delhi, Sep 10: The Registrar General of India (RGI) has directed officials to give special attention to sensitive and complex questions relating to religion, mother tongue, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe status, caste and other categories while training enumerators for the population enumeration phase of Census 2027.
In a recent communique to nodal officers of states and Union Territories, Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan said training of Census officials in Goa, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand for the second phase of the exercise should be completed by the third week of November.
Training in the remaining states where the population enumeration will be conducted next year should be completed by January 15, 2027, he said.
Population enumeration in Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and non-snow-bound areas of Uttarakhand will be conducted from December 1, 2026 to January 4, 2027. For the remaining parts of the country, the exercise will be completed by March 1, 2027.
The second phase of the Census is already under way in the Union Territory of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
The Central government has also deferred Census 2027 in Manipur, according to a notification issued by the RGI on Saturday.
"Training shall place special emphasis on sensitive and complex question categories-covering religion, mother tongue, scheduled caste and scheduled tribe status, caste, disability, migration, fertility, and economic activity - with particular attention to appropriate probing techniques and the correct application of category codes," Narayan said.
The massive headcount exercise, the eighth since Independence, will involve more than 34 lakh enumerators across the country.
Narayan stressed that the quality and timely completion of training at all levels would be as important as the training itself. He said the process would be actively monitored at every level through the training dashboard available on the CMMS portal on a real-time basis.
"Training of all Census functionaries including regular and reserve Enumerators and Supervisors shall be completed within the scheduled timeline so that sufficient time is available for revision, final preparedness, and deployment before the commencement of Population Enumeration," the communique said.
The RGI has also directed officials to adhere strictly to prescribed batch sizes. The number of Enumerators and Supervisors in a training batch should not exceed 50 under any circumstances, with 40 to 45 being the norm.
For all categories of trainers, the batch size has been capped at 40. Where the number of eligible trainees exceeds the prescribed limit, additional batches will have to be created.
Describing the Census as "one of the empirical foundations for building Viksit Bharat", Narayan said the exercise would be conducted by a trained and digitally proficient workforce anchored in the spirit of Seva Bhav.
For Phase II of Census 2027, a structured household interaction framework called PRAMAN has been developed. The acronym stands for Pehchaan (Identity), Rishta (Rapport), Anurodh (Request), Madad (Assistance), Aankada Shuddhata (Data Accuracy) and Nishtha (Commitment).
"The Charge Officer shall administer the updated Seva Bhaav Pledge - revised for Phase II - to all Enumerators and Supervisors on the final day of training. The model pledges for Enumerators and Supervisors shall be issued separately along with detailed E&S training guidelines," Narayan said.
He also directed Census officials from the headquarters to undertake field visits to independently assess the quality of training.
"Observers so deputed are empowered to provide direct feedback to trainers, re-orient sessions, or recommend replacement of trainers where quality standards are not being met," he said.
The decennial Census, which was scheduled to be conducted in 2021, was postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Union Cabinet has approved Rs 11,718 crore for conducting Census 2027, which is expected to be the country's largest headcount exercise.