India launches world's biggest census

[ajtr]

India launches what it calls world's biggest census


India on Thursday kicked off what is says will be the world's biggest census that it hopes will help plug wastage in government welfare schemes, boost tax revenue and define consumers more clearly.

WORLD

More than two million census workers will cover an estimated 1.2 billion people, defining them in demographic, socio-cultural and economic terms, including such parameters as mobile phone and Internet usage and banking access.

"Census 2011 is the largest exercise of its kind in human history. Our goal is to identify, count, record and issue identity cards to every Indian citizen," Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said ahead of the launch.

The census in the world's second-most populous country is held every 10 years. China, with a population of 1.3 billion, also has a census every 10 years.

With about two-thirds of the Indian population in hard-to-reach rural areas, the census is the main source of data for everyone from manufacturers of cars and marketers of toothpaste to government officials planning and implementing key programs.

Since the first census in 1872, it has also been key to drawing up constituencies for local and national elections.

With the government stepping up the rollout of massive programs for the poor such as rural jobs and health insurance, the data should also help plug leakages, which a former prime minister once estimated at about 85 percent of the total outlay.

The data will also help take the guesswork out of companies' investment and marketing plans in Asia's third largest economy.

"For a large country like ours, any detail that you can get on the population is always useful," said Ajit Ranade, chief economist at Aditya Birla Group. "We just don't know enough."

The government will also, for the first time, spend about 35 billion rupees ($786 million) on preparing a National Population Register (NPR), which will have photographs and fingerprints of all persons above the age of 15 years.

The NPR will pave the way for the ambitious Unique Identification scheme, which aims at issuing a smart card and UID number to every Indian citizen, enabling easier access to banking, welfare payments and boost tax collections.

 

[xebex]

I remember my mom get assigned to do the 2000 census and used to say that it was a pain in the neck considering the walk around and complexity getting the residents. Now, I can see her laughing out loud as she just got retired last month lol.

Btw, how come this is the largest census in history since China also have this census program?

 

[Rage]

I remember my mom get assigned to do the 2000 census and used to say that it was a pain in the neck considering the walk around and complexity getting the residents. Now, I can see her laughing out loud as she just got retired last month lol.

Btw, how come this is the largest census in history since China also have this census program?

China has the world's largest population, but demographers generally agree that India conducts, by far, the world's most comprehensive census.

This, the fifteen uninterrupted decennial census, is to include data on not just demographic and income variables, but information on such things as the quality of building materials in housing, the number of people sleeping on pavements, footpaths and in parks, latrine availability, children in schools, and possibly caste stratification, etc.

The idea of course is to issue the 1.18 billion population biometric cards by 2017, so that present misuses or abuses of caste quotas, benefits etc. and irregularities in housing schemes are severely mitigated. That atleast is the plan, and it is an ambitious and salubrious plan, the question remains how well they will execute it.