Second phase of Census 2011 starts

[1]

Sonia Gandhi being pinned a badge after she was enumerated for Census 2011 in New Delhi

The second phase of Census 2011 began on Wednesday with enumerators seeking information about the first citizen of the country, President Pratibha Patil.

The decadal exercise, which will cover the entire country, began by collecting information on a "number of characteristics about the President's personal household" by enumerator Rita, a Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesperson said.

The exercise took place in the presence of home minister P. Chidambaram, minister of state for home affairs Gurudas Kamat, census commissioner of India, Dr.C. Chandramouli, along with director of census operation, Delhi Varsha Joshi.

Speaking after her enumeration, the President asked everyone to wholeheartedly take part in the Census operation, which is gigantic in scale and to take it as a national duty.

A team of Census officials led by registrar-general and Census commissioner C Chandramouli also enumerated Vice-President Hamid Ansari as part of the country-wide exercise.

"It is the second largest census in the world and I wish the registrar-general and his team a grand success," he said.

Ansari said this Census will determine the socio-economic health of the country in next decade.

The first phase called house listing and housing Census, was conducted between April to September 2010.

The second phase, called the population enumeration phase, starting on Wednesday is being conducted simultaneously all over the country till February, 28 and the entire exercise would be completed by March, 5.

All 640 districts, 5,767 tehsils, 7,742 towns and more than six lakh villages of the country will be covered in the exercise. This is 15th Census of the country.