PC rejects Joshi’s proposal of BPL census

Jan 16, 2011 - Amit Agnihotri |

New Delhi

Union home minister P. Chidambaram has rejected a proposal from the rural development minister C.P. Joshi, seconded by National Advisory Council chairperson Sonia Gandhi, to conduct a caste census along with the Below Poverty Line census scheduled this year.
While the caste census is to be undertaken by the Registrar General of India and the Census Commissioner in June 2011, the rural development ministry will conduct the BPL census from coming April.
NAC chairperson, Sonia Gandhi had written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh supporting the contention of rural development ministry that unlike in the past when the states conducted surveys to identify the BPL persons, this time the socio-economic survey, which will form the basis of BPL identification, may be conducted by the Registrar General of India and the Census Commissioner. She pointed out that the deficiencies in the BPL surveys conducted in the past had led to significant inclusion and exclusion errors.
Citing the benefits of the proposal, the rural development ministry said that the RGI has the requisite expertise to conduct these surveys and is an uninterested party unlike the state governments, which are more likely to be subject to pressure groups. The RD ministry also said that clubbing the two exercises will save a lot of resources and reduce stress on the government’s field machinery.
Rejecting the rural development minister C.P. Joshi’s proposal, Mr Chidambaram wrote to the PM that the caste census may be done as a stand alone exercise and that conducting it with the BPL census and the economic census has many disadvantages.
Among the reasons cited by the home ministry against the proposal are that the BPL Census will attract interest groups which may impact the integrity of the census and caste enumeration. The MHA further said that while Caste Census is individual based, the socio-economic census is individual, household and enterprise based.
The MHA also pointed out that while the caste enumerator will only visit household, for the socio-economic census he will have to visit non-residential buildings also. Further, the home ministry said the proposal may cause delay in the Caste Census .

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/52450" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-3941e59f3387be766976c8e95f373c12" value="form-3941e59f3387be766976c8e95f373c12" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="87424597" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>