Census new rules notified, people can self-enumerate online

In a gazette notification issued on Friday, the Centre amended Census Rules, 1990, to include “electronic form” and “self-enumeration” in the schedule of questions to be asked during census enumeration. The amendment has been inserted in clause C of Rule-2, which deals with definitions.

Clause C now reads: “Census Schedule means the schedule containing questions referred to in sub-section (1) of section 8 of the Act, in paper form or in an electronic form and can be canvassed in the said modes including through self-enumeration.”

Section 8 of Census Act, 1948, gives powers to the enumerator to ask questions regarding the Census and makes it obligatory for respondents to answer, with certain exceptions.

An explanation accompanying the new insertions says, “For the purposes of this clause, “electronic form‟ shall have the same meaning as assigned to it in clause (r) of sub-section (1) of section 2 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (21 of 2000).”

Another insertion says, “’self-enumeration’ means filling-up, completion and submission of census schedule by respondents themselves”.

The government has inserted an extra clause in Rule 6 as 6D, which says, “Without prejudice to any other provisions of these rules, a person may fill up, complete and submit the census schedule through self-enumeration.”

Amendments have also been made in Rule 5, which deals with “Functions of Census Officers”. In clause C of Rule 5, which says the Census commissioner will “devise the census schedules or questionnaires and provide to the State Governments or Union Territory Administrations for publication in their respective Gazette in order to canvass in the census”, the government has inserted “and to be used for self-enumeration” after “in the census”.

The Census, scheduled to begin in March 2020 with the house-listing phase and NPR enumeration, followed by population census, has been postponed indefinitely due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Centre recently extended the deadline for jurisdictional changes for all states up to June 30, 2022. December 31, 2021 was the deadline set earlier.

According to sources in the Home Ministry, which oversees the functioning of Registrar General of India, this has been done on the request of states, as they have not been able to update jurisdictional changes for various reasons.

The government has also made insertions on how the exercise should be publicised and how Census statistics should be published. In Rule 5, which also deals with publishing Census statistics through publications of magnetic media, the word “media” has been replaced with “electronic or any other media”.

Rule 8 has an addition: “print media, electronic media, social media”, to the list of modes for ensuring wide publicity for the exercise. The earlier list only included radio, audio-visuals and posters.

Rule 9 has been updated to allow the census schedules filled through self-enumeration to be kept along with the census schedules and the connected papers canvassed by the enumerators at the office of the director of census operations or at such other place that the census commissioner may direct for the processing of the data as collected.