New Delhi, March 30
The forthcoming Census-2011, starting April 1, will be a comprehensive database of citizens. The 15th Census since 1872, the exercise will not just collect and collate the numbers, enumerators will also collect finger prints and photographs besides information on mobile phones, computers and internet access.
President Pratibha Patil will be the first person to be enumerated as the exercise gets under way on Thursday. The exercise will cover an estimated 1.2 billion residents of the country living in all 35 states and union territories. It would cost around Rs 2209 crore while the approved cost of the scheme for creation of National Population Register is Rs 3539.24 crore.
Home Secretary Gopal K Pillai said after completion of the exercise, the largest ever, a National Population Register (NPR) will be created in which the government will have the entire population of the country under one database. This will also include photographs of the entire population.
“The NPR will be the building block for the government to allot a unique identification number (UID) by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)," he said.
The UIDAI will undertake biometrics based method and assign UID numbers to each resident. The UID will be a smart card with UID number printed on it and will include basic details like name, mother's/father's name, sex, date and place of birth, photograph. The allotment of UID number will not give the guarantee of citizenship, said Pillai while clarifying fears that illegal residents could also get the cards.
Census-2011 will be conducted in two phases. The first phase - houselisting and housing census - will be conducted between April and July. Each state will need about 45 days to cover the exercise.
The second - population enumeration phase - will be conducted simultaneously all over the country from February 9 to 28, 2011. The census would cover all 640 districts, 5767 tehsils, 7742 towns and more than
6 lakhs villages. More than 24 crores households will be visited and 1.20 billion people enumerated during
this exercise.
