At Bank Road near Patna's Gandhi Maidan on Saturday morning, a woman enumerator, who led the team in ward number 27, made a square-shaped box and wrote “01”. With this began the state government's ambitious caste-based head count. It's a development Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav hailed as a “historic move”, and BJP Rajya Sabha member Sushil Kumar Modi “wondered” why the government “delayed” the process and asked the RJD not to take the credit for it, reminding the party that the previous NDA government in the state had taken the decision. At Bank Road, the enumerators informed occupants of the house — Dr Zakir Kamal Anjum and Nusrat Zafar — that the enumeration process of the survey in Patna began from his house and asked the numbers of family members. One member jotted down "four" in a register, took Dr Anjum's signature and moved on to the next house. The first phase of the “caste-based survey", as the state government calls it, will have enumerators count the number of houses and residents in them — the residents will not be asked even their age and gender. District Magistrate Chandra Shekhar Singh, who moved along with the team on Bank Road for a while, said, “The first phase is that of enumeration of houses and people. The second phase will have all details (such as one's caste and economic status) — those living in slums or on roads will also be counted.” An enumerator said the first phase will continue until January 21. “In the second phase, we have a set of 26 questions on caste/religion of a person, his/her profession, number of people staying presently in each house, and if anyone (from among those households) lives outside the state,” the enumerator explained. Each team of enumerators, which will include a statistician, has to count 150 homes, housing an estimated 700 people. Once a team finishes its job for the day, “we will draw a nazri naksha — a rough map of they witnessed, drawing the area with its landmarks such as temples, hospitals, parks, community halls or any structure “that is used as a common reference for location”, a team member explained. Welcoming the move, Dr Anjum said, “We will get to know the exact number of people with details of their profession. It would give a fair idea to policymakers and planners to accordingly devise welfare schemes.” About 5.18 lakh enumerators — government teachers, anganwadi, Jeevika and MGNREGS workers among them — have to count an estimated 2.58 crore families in the first phase. RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav said, “It feels great that the caste-based survey has begun. After the Centre did not concede to the demand from all political parties of Bihar (including BJP) for a nationwide caste census, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar decided to go ahead with our own caste census.” Nitish, undertaking his Samadhan Yatra across the state, said, “We will soon get to know all details of the state's population with its socioeconomic profile.” Emphasising that the “RJD must not try to take any credit for caste survey”, Sushil Modi said: “The NDA government (before Nitish split away and joined forces with the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan) had taken the decision. The BJP had supported it in the Assembly and Legislative Council and was also part of the state delegation that had met the PM (with demand for a caste census). I wonder why the government delayed the process by seven months.” The delegation had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August 2022, when JD(U) was still part of the NDA. Leader of Opposition in Assembly and senior BJP leader Vijay Kumar Sinha, however, called the process a “sheer waste of tax-payers' money” and asserted that a caste survey “would only lead to caste tensions”.
