Bageshree S/The Hindu

• Last survey was held in 1931; enumerators to use Simputers this time 
• The exercise will be held in April/May next year
• It entails a survey of 1.18 crore households

Bangalore, Oct 17: A caste-based census, long overdue, will be conducted in the State in April and May next year. Such an exercise was last undertaken in 1931 across the country by the colonial authorities. Karnataka will be the first State to take up such a survey after a gap of 77 years.

The mammoth exercise, which will entail a door-to-door survey of 1.18 crore households by one lakh enumerators, is likely to go hi-tech with the use of Simputers. Chairman of the Permanent Backward Classes Commission C.S. Dwarakanath told The Hindu that talks were on with Bharat Electronics Ltd. to provide the hardware and Tata-CMC to provide software support for the Simputers.

“We are conducting a pilot project in December to check for any problems in the use of Simputers and rectify them. If all goes well we will be able to not only save on paper and other material, but also ensure greater uniformity and accuracy of data,” said Mr. Dwarakanath. “We will have to train enumerators to use Simputers.” The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation has offered to print census forms in case problems arise with the Simputer proposal.

Among the enumerators, 58,000 will be teachers and the rest will be postgraduate students of Sociology, Political Science and Social Work. They will be allowed to submit their work on the census as project reports. “I have held preliminary talks with university registrars on this,” Mr. Dwarakanath said.

The caste-based census is crucial, said the chairman, because it provides a scientific basis for determining backwardness. “We will be measuring backwardness on 60 social and educational parameters,” he said, pointing out that the Supreme Court had raised questions on the logic of providing reservation to Other Backward Classes in the absence of adequate data on what constitutes backwardness.

Cold storage

The budget for the census in the State was released in 2005 by both the State (Rs. 2 crore) and the Centre (Rs. 22.5 crore), but the proposal was kept in cold storage. Mr. Dwarakanath said that he had put this on top of the agenda when he took over as chairman of the commission.