Thursday, February 10, 2011

Census of India 2011

Yesterday afternoon one of the security guards knocked on our door and handed me this form to fill out.

India's 2011 census began in earnest yesterday.  I'm a little perplexed that one of the 2.7 million census employees didn't deliver the poorly xeroxed form.  It's also full of spelling errors, even headed "Censes of India 2011."  Is it possible this isn't really part of the official census?

Another phase in April/May will apparently include coming round to fingerprint, iris scan, and assign an identity number to everybody in India.  All 1.2 billion?  A massive undertaking indeed.  The FAQ on the official government census site is kind of interesting, but doesn't include any of the questions I had.



Here are the questions on the form (without corrections):
  1. Name of family member beginning with Head of the family
  2. Relation to Head of the Family
  3. Male/Female
  4. Date of Birth & Age
  5. Presently Married Yes/NO
  6. Age at time of Marriage
  7. Religion - Hindu/Muslim/Christian/Sikh/Boudh/Jain
  8. Caste ST/SC
  9. If Physically Handicapped What type?
  10. Mother Tongue
  11. Languages known other than Mother tongue
  12. Literate/Illiterate
  13. Whether studing Last Class Passed
  14. Highest Qualification and special subject taken at UG/PG level
  15. Have you worked in the last year Yes/No
  16. Nature of the work
  17. If Business/Actual Business
  18. Nature of the Business
  19. Category of the work Worker/Owner/Service
  20. Non-earning work/Student/House work/Retired/taking Rent
  21. in search of Job Yes/No
  22. Distance travelled to work in kms to work one way and transportation bus/car/cycle etc
  23. place of birth City/State/District
  24. Place where you were staying before coming to this place and whether from town ti the city
  25. period of stay in present location
  26. Number of living children
  27. total number of live children born
  28. number of children born last year

2 comments:

AndreaGlick said...

I liked your blog about how it takes so many people in India to do the task that it might typically take one person to do here. I can imagine those millions of census workers furiously pouring over all that important data!

Jim Lachman said...

Sounds like they're snooping for gossip! :) Maybe a nosy housewife with MS WORD :)