Getting citizens to part with personal information under phase II of Census 2011 has proven to be an uphill task for the National Population Registry. This phase of the exercise focuses extensively on personal details, including information on caste, marital status, mother tongue, place of birth, work, education and migration. Enumerators say that people are reluctant to reveal information about their religion, caste and gender.
Nitin Kadam, an enumerator in Kamathipura, said, “The transgender community there objected to being marked as the ‘third gender’. Its members insisted that they are females. It was tough to convince them, while a chunk of them refused to be counted.”
Some people who have converted to Buddhism refused to have that mentioned as their religion. Instead, they wanted their caste to be written down as ‘Mahar’ and religion as ‘Hinduism’. An enumerator from Hindu Colony said that the descendants of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar insisted that they be noted down as ‘Mahars’.
Others hurdles enumerators faced included an unwillingness to be counted. In several places, the house owners demanded that their tenants should not be counted. “They feared that they would hand over ownership rights to the tenants if their names were written against the house address,” one enumerator said.
Several families demanded photocopies of their Census forms.
Despite glitches, officials claimed that the Census exercise will be completed in time. Phase II of the 15th National Census, 2011, began on February 9 and would be wrapped up by February 28.
“We are confident that all the work will be completed by the end of this month. March 1 to March 5 would be a review period,” said Manisha Mhaiskar, additional municipal commissioner. She added that in this period, people who have missed the Census enumeration would be taken into account.
The task of enumerating prisoners will be completed by February 24. “About 500 prisoners have already been enumerated at Arthur Road jail. The process is on for enumerating the remaining 3,000. At Byculla jail, counting of the women prisoners has been completed but that of the men is still on,” said Dr Shridhar Kubal, deputy city Census officer.
Phase I of the Census concluded at the end of June last year. Listing of houses was carried out in this phase.
