Door-to-door census work ends in Mumbai, over to helplines

Even as the first phase of the census exercise ends today, the headcount is far from complete. According to information from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), close to 13% housing blocks are yet to be enlisted. For the census exercise, the 43 lakh homes in Mumbai were divided in to 27,285 listing blocks.

Additional principal census officer Manisha Mhaiskar confirmed that enumerators had so far been successful in covering 87% of all the blocks in the city. According to the data available with the civic body, the wards where the census drive lagged behind were Malad, Kurla, and Dadar. And, the exercise went off smoothly in municipal wards at Babula Tank and Nana Chowk (wards B and D) in south Mumbai, Chembur, Trombay, Mankhurd and Mulund.
Also, of the 30,000 odd enumerators entrusted with census work, 2,000 did not report to work. But, housing blocks allocated to the absent enumerators were re-allotted to others, said Mhaiskar. 

Mhaiskar added that during the counting exercise, about 10-15% homes were found locked, but told Mumbaikars not to worry if they haven’t been listed. Even as the door-to-door counting exercise will come to an end on Tuesday, the BMC will continue to operate helplines that can be used by citizens to get their names listed.

The helplines, Mhaiskar said, had already received positive response from citizens. “Since Thursday, when these lines were opened, we have already received 4,427 calls,” said Mhaiskar, urging citizens to make use of the helplines.