Exercise to commence from April 1
SHLLONG/TURA: The census exercise this time in Meghalaya will directly count the transgender people in the first phase even as the state government has decided to conduct the exercise from April 1 to May 15 this year. In Tura, in order to train and sensitise all concerned about the National Population Register (NPR) exercise to be conducted in the state, the district level training for principal census officers/ district census officers and charge officers for West Garo Hills was held at DRDA Conference Hall on Wednesday.
In the last census, the transgenders were counted in the second phase but this time they would be counted in the first phase.
Moreover, the idea of digital enumerators is also being implemented as it will allow them to collect the information in their mobile.
However, this initiative is not being imposed on enumerators even though they are being encouraged to follow the digital method for which a mobile application will be available. The enumerators can also work in offline mode under this idea of digital census.
The population census, which is a gigantic exercise, will have two phases. In the first phase, House-listing and House census will be carried out, while in the first 30 days, the census data will be updated and additional 15 days will be utilised for updating the NPR.
The Deputy Registrar General (Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh), Bharati Chanda told The Shillong Times that in the second phase, there will be population enumeration (meaning headcounts) which will be held from February 9, 2021 to February 28, 2021.
Stating that the census exercise cannot be repeated, she said that once an area is missed out, it will skip the census for 10 years even as she added that the data is confidential never divulged.
In Meghalaya, one enumerator will be given the workload to cover a population of around 800 people and the enumerators will be government employees.
Chanda also informed that a person in the entire census exercise can either be omitted or counted twice, however, a person who is a foreigner but a normal resident of the area will be counted in the exercise but foreign diplomats will not be counted.
In the first phase, defence areas, which are called special charge, will not be counted due to security reasons. For the initial phase, there will be 34 questions regarding condition of buildings, room and amenities, bank details and demographic profile among others.
The paper schedule for the exercise has been translated into 16 Indian languages and in Meghalaya, there will be English and Hindi schedule while the instruction manual will be translated into Khasi and Garo as per the demand of the state government.
The enumerators will have the liberty to use paper schedule and their work will be supervised by the supervisor and charge officer i.e. Block Development Officer (BDO) in rural areas and executive officer in urban areas.
Several layers of training will also be held for the master trainers, field trainer and enumerators.
The entire exercise, this time, will be held under the Census Monitoring and Management System (CMMS), which will monitor the exercise through computers.
The paper schedule from the BDO will be directly sent to Bhubaneswar and the exercise statistics will be used for formulating major policies and even in the delimitation of the constituencies.
Sensitisation on NPR
Meanwhile, in Tura, highlighting the importance of census operation and updation of NPR, Joram Beda, Director, Census Operations, Meghalaya, said that the NPR exercise will be held after 10 years which comprises of House-listing and updating of the Census of India 2021. Stating that census is the foundation for the formulation of various schemes and policies of the Government of India, he said that the collection of data for census should be accurate and precise.
Beda also said that since it is the enumerators and supervisors who will be implementing the exercise at the grassroots level, the senior officers should encourage, guide and motivate them at right earnest so that the general concept of census operations should percolate to them for putting it into action at the grassroots level.
The instruction manual for updation of NPR, house listing, housing census mobile app, users manual for NPR mobile app were also highlighted during the training programme. Others who were present included Ram Singh, West Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner, additional deputy commissioners and other district officers.