Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 9 (IANS) The union home ministry has asked people to retain slips given by enumerators as acknowledgement of submission of their census form to the officials as it would be needed for data collection for a nation-wide population register, a statement said Wednesday.
Minister of State for Home Ajay Maken made this request to people after a visit to various part of the capital Tuesday during which he got the feedback from both the people and the enumerators, engaged in the ongoing house-listing exercise, said the home ministry statement.

Maken also asked enumerators to specifically educate people of the importance of the slip given to them as “they (slips) would be needed during the time of data collection for National Population Register (NPR).”

During his field visit, people and enumerators apprised Maken of the landlords’ fears that the data generated during the census exercise may be misused by tenants in claiming ownership of the rented premises itself.

Maken assured landlords that “the information given in the census by people was to be kept strictly confidential and therefore any landlord need not worry on this account”.

Ruing that many landlords were not permitting their tenants to get listed in the census exercise, the minister asked them to “facilitate the census exercise, lest the data generated is flawed”.

Detailing the progress in the headcount exercise undertaken by the government every 10 years, Maken said the exercise has yielded biographical data like name, age, sex and addresses of over 1.16 crore people, while it has generated biometric data like fingerprint impression, iris impression and photograph of over 61 lakh individuals till now.

Maken said the data collection had been completed in Assam, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Meghalaya, Goa, Delhi (partly), Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Lakshadweep, Orissa, Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Karnataka, Gujarat, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

The work is about to be completed in Andhra Pradesh and Tripura.

While substantial progress had been made in Delhi, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Haryana, Punjab, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, in case of Himachal, Tamil Nadu, Nagaland, Puducherry and Manipur the exercise commenced June 1, 2010.

Regarding creation of National Population Register in coastal areas, Maken said the data collection is over in seven states and four Union Territories.

In the remaining two states of Maharashtra and West Bengal it will be completed by June 2010.