Deadline over, first phase of Ceunss yet to be completed in UP

Even after the June 30-deadline, the first phase of Census 2010 is far from over in the big towns of Uttar Pradesh. According to Census officials, the first phase — which includes data collection for Housing Census, House Listing and National Population Register (NPR) — is yet to be completed in towns where municipal corporations are handling the task.
Last week, after receiving reports on the tardy progress of the project, the state Directorate of Census Operations (DCO) had approached the state government seeking its intervention. On the DCO’s request, the government on Monday asked all divisional commissioners to direct the district magistrates to complete the exercise at the earliest.
“In almost all districts, the first phase of the Census has been completed. But the progress is tardy in municipal corporations, including Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi and Ghaziabad,” said A M Ansari, Deputy Director of the state DCO.
Among other municipal corporations, the first phase of the project has been completed only in Moradabad and Bareilly. The exercise is nearing completion in Agra, Aligarh, Meerut, Saharanpur and Gorakhpur. “We have requested the state government to issue directives in this regard to the divisional commissioners during their monthly review meeting in July,” said Ansari.
Last Saturday, the DCO had held a meeting with its in-charges in 71 districts to review the progress of the project. “We have received reports that enumeration is complete in almost everywhere except in big towns. While in a few towns, the enumerators did not show interest in the exercise in the beginning, at other places, they were not aware about the given areas — thus resulting in the delay,” said a DCO official.
According to sources, the helpline at the DCO office in Lucknow is still receiving complaints from people that enumerators have not reached their localities for survey. In the last one week, such complaints have poured mostly from Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Allahabad and Varanasi.
After the completion of the field survey, the district in-charges will submit the data by the end of this month. While the data of 46 districts will be brought to the Lucknow office, the remaining will be sent to New Delhi. “In the next six months, the data will be scanned and analysed. Then it will be used to prepare the report on Housing Census and House Listing as well as NPR,” said Ansari. The second phase of Census will begin in February 2011.