[Reader-list] Census to skip Naxal-ruled villages

[Sanjay Kak]

In recent weeks the BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad has
frequently sought to remind us of the popular mandate that his party
(and its economic policies) received in the Chattisgarh Assembly
elections held less than 6 months ago. They had a voter-turnout of
more than 70% in the Maoist dominated districts, he gloated, the
people were with his party ...

A bit of a puzzle that is.
Maoists call for a boycott of the Elections in Dantewada, but we still
have a voter-turnout of 70%...
There is no such opposition to the Census, but the Govt autonomously
declares its inability to even ennumerate its citizens.

Or was the Assembly election managed in the same effecient way as they
are in J&K?
And what will happen to Nandan Nilekani's plan to tag all of us Indian citizens?

Just a thought.

Best

Sanjay Kak
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Census to skip Naxal-ruled villages
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/census-to-skip-naxalruled-villages/607964/0

Amitabh Sinha

There will be no census exercise in several hundred villages in
Chhattisgarh which have been rendered out of bounds for government
officials by Naxalite groups.

District administrations of Jagdalpur, Dantewada, Bijapur, Narayanpur
and Kanker, all part of undivided Bastar which was once one of the
largest districts in the country, have informed senior officials in
Raipur that it will be difficult for them to carry out the census
exercise — counting of people, collection of biometric data for
preparation of the National Population Register — in many areas in
view of the Naxal threat.

“We have requested that 108 villages in Dantewada be exempted from
census because our officials are being prevented by Naxalites from
reaching these areas. Our request has been accepted,” Reena Kangale,
District Magistrate of Dantewada told The Sunday Express.

Kangale said local officials had identified 255 villages which posed a
challenge to enumerators because of the inaccessible terrain and
presence of Naxalites. In 147 of these, however, the enumerators were
able to complete the numbering of houses, an exercise that precedes
the actual counting of people.

“We are assuming that since the officials were allowed to number the
houses, they would be able to carry out the census as well. But in 108
villages, even house numbering has not been possible,” she said.

Significantly, these 108 villages do not include the area near the
Chintalnar forest where Naxalites had killed 76 securitymen earlier
this month. Those areas were not counted amongst the worst affected in
the district before that incident and were within reach of government
officials.

Kangale’s counterparts in the other districts have not asked for
exemption for the troubled areas but only identified the number of
villages where there were “practical difficulties” in completing the
census exercise.

The district administration of Kanker has listed 300 such villages
while Jagdalpur has identified 194. Similarly, 117 villages in Bijapur
and 22 villages in Narayanpur fall in the same category.

“There will be full effort to reach to every village and every person.
But there is no denying the fact that there are some problem areas.
The administration in Raipur has been informed while we continue
efforts to complete the census in a comprehensive manner,” said R
Prasanna, District Magistrate of Bijapur.

Lying in heavily forested areas, these villages do not have very large
populations. The 22 villages in Narayanpur, for example, had only
1,723 people according to the 2001 census. So, leaving out these
villages is unlikely to distort the census figures in a significant
manner.

But what is important in this year’s census is the simultaneous
compilation of the National Population Register, or NPR. Unlike the
census data, which only contains a count of the people and some
aggregate characteristics of broad groupings within the population,
the NPR will identify every person individually and also store
biometric information like photographs, fingerprints and iris scan.
The NPR data will be later fed into the scheme for allotting a unique
identification number to every individual in the country.

The NPR and UID number are aimed at better targeting of government
services — like the public distribution system or the rural employment
guarantee scheme — to the people, especially those belonging to the
socially and economically weaker sections.

“Local officials have been told to spread awareness about the benefits
of census and make people interested in participating in it,” said
Renu Pillai, Director Census, Chhattisgarh.

The local administrations are also looking at alternative ways of
carrying out the census exercise. “If some villages are indeed
inaccessible, we are examining whether it would be feasible for us to
count and identify people from these villages when they come to nearby
markets or government fair price shops,” said Lakhan Singh Ken,
District Magistrate of Narayanpur.

In Delhi, Registrar General and Census Commissioner C Chandramouli
said such challenges were nothing new to this exercise.

“In a country so vast and such diverse as India, carrying out a census
is a job laced with difficulties. This time it is the Naxal-affected
areas. There have been other areas earlier where census could not be
done in a comprehensive manner,” he said, citing the case of Assam
that was left out in 1981 and Jammu and Kashmir where census could not
be held in 1991.

Chandramouli said as of now he was not aware of any areas in
Chhattisgarh that were being left out of the census exercise. “May be
the district administrations have expressed their apprehensions about
certain areas but the mandate is to include everyone in this. Only on
completion of the exercise next year will we come to know which areas
could not be counted.”