Workstation for research on micro data from census to be set up

“The centre is a unique concept as it will help researchers collect micro data from the census and then understand the varied characteristics of population,” said Nagarajan.

Nagarajan said the workstation will help researchers identify gaps in the census data collection. Be it research on fertility,mortality rates through the sample registration system or understanding the caste census reports,micro data analysis will help in gauging the problems.

The administrative exercise of collecting micro level data in the country is conducted by the Centre every ten years with active support from states and Union Territories. Census,2011,conducted recently is the 15th in the series since 1872 and the seventh after independence.

The post-census operations call for tabulation of the data collected during census in proper format,with high level of accuracy to make it available for use to all concerned. Accordingly,after every census,ORGI and DCOs publish data with regard to statistics on population,added Nagarajan.

GIPE and the Directorate of Census Operations has been given the task to set up the centre in the state.

The data published by the census commissioner is in the form of aggregate tables at various administrative levels like country,state,district,sub-district,town,village or ward in town,where it is not possible to identify the individual(s) to whom these relate to. While allowing research on micro data,it is important to anonymise the data to protect confidentiality by masking the location and a few sensitive fields. After anonymysing data,the dataset is made available for in-depth research at the workstations on varying characteristics of the population.

Nagarajan said the researchers are permitted to generate cross tabulations using the micro-data sets but are not permitted to copy or take out the data from the workstation.

The objective to set up a workstation is to permit researchers optimum use of anonymised micro data for in-depth research by allowing access for generating cross-tabulations not published by the census,he added.