Date: 10/01/2023

Relevance: GS-1: Population and associated issues.

Key Phrases: freezing of administrative boundaries, census, House-listing operations, delimitation of constituencies, rural-urban distribution, National Population Register, Census Act, of 1948.

Why in News?

• Apart from being used to demarcate constituencies, the Census data is also vital to the administration, and the planning of key welfare schemes could be affected by the delay.

Freezing of administration boundaries:

• Recently, it was reported that the freezing of administrative boundaries that precede the Census would be done with effect from July 1, 2023.
• Such freezing is necessary as State governments are in the habit of creating new districts and tehsils or reorganizing existing ones.
• If such changes happen during a Census, there would be chaos in the field as to who should oversee such areas and a likelihood of some areas being left out of the Census.
• House-listing operations take about a month but were traditionally taken up in various States at different points of time between March and September of the year prior to the Census.
• It is not clear whether the government is planning to synchronize the house-listing operations to reduce the interval between the freezing of boundaries and the actual Census enumeration.

Periodicity of the Census:

• Constitutional provision:
  • The Constitution talks about the use of Census data for the delimitation of constituencies and for determining the quantum of reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

However, it does not say what should be the periodicity of the census.

• Census Act, of 1948:
  • It provides the legal background for several activities relating to the Census without mentioning anything about its periodicity.
  • It says, “The Central Government may declare its intention of taking a census, whenever it may consider it necessary or desirable so to do, and thereupon the census shall be taken”.
  • This provision puts the onus of deciding when to conduct a Census on the executive.
• Other countries:
  • This is unlike the position in several countries such as the U.S. and Japan where the Constitution or the Census law mandates a Census with defined periodicity.

Implications of the delay:

• Accuracy of data:
  • The population projections at the State and national levels have been fairly accurate in the past.
  • However, it is not feasible to get reliable projections at lower geographic levels such as for districts and cities or even small States and Union Territories.
  • For answers to questions on the improvement in literacy and educational levels, economic activity, migration, etc., or the impact of programs like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, one must depend on sample surveys.
  • These surveys have limitations and cannot be used to find answers to how many villages have literacy rates below 75% or which tehsils have a low percentage of people getting protected water supply. Such information is important to initiate action to rectify the situation.
• Reservation of seats:
  • The Census data are used to determine the number of seats to be reserved for SCs and STs in Parliament, State legislatures, local bodies, and government services.
  • In the case of panchayats and municipal bodies, the reservation of seats for SCs and STs is based on their proportion in the population.
  • Other than the Census, there is no other source that can provide this information.
  • A delay in the Census means that the data from the 2011 Census would continue to be used.
  • In many towns and even panchayats that have seen rapid changes in the composition of their population over the last decade, this would mean that either too many or too few seats are being reserved.
• Delimitation:
  • Delimitation of parliamentary and Assembly constituencies would continue to be based on the 2001 Census till data from a Census after 2026 are published.
• Changing population distribution:
  • The rural-urban distribution of the population has been rapidly changing over the years. There is high population growth in urban areas. Some cities have been growing faster than others through in-migration.
  • For example, areas under the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike grew by 49.3% during 2001-11, while the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (11.9%), the Delhi Municipal Corporation (11.7%), and Greater Chennai Corporation (7.0%) had much lower growth rates.
  • Kolkata Municipal Corporation recorded a fall in population during the same period.
• Impact of the pandemic:
  • The pandemic resulted in deaths among adults and the aged relatively more than children.
  • Its impact on age distribution in severely affected areas would be of interest as it would give an indirect estimate of the number of deaths.
  • This would either validate or reject the various estimates of the number of deaths due to the pandemic.

National Population Register:

• The National Population Register (NPR) is a Register of the usual residents of the country. It is being prepared at the local (Village/sub-Town), sub-District, District, State, and National level under provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003.
• It is mandatory for every usual resident of India to register in the NPR.
• A usual resident is defined for the purposes of NPR as a person who has resided in a local area for the past 6 months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next 6 months or more.

Census and NPR:

• The decision to collect data for the National Population Register by piggybacking on the Census operations was the most debated issue before the Census was postponed.
• Such controversies negatively impact the Census, which is the largest administrative exercise for collecting data.
• The Census is a single-shot operation and there is no scope for a retake.
• The Central government’s stated stand is that the data for the National Population Register would be updated during the Census.
• As the Census has been considerably delayed, it would be advisable to separate these two and disassociate the Census from a politically sensitive issue.
• This would help complete the Census as early as possible and maintain the reliability of data.

Conclusion:

• The first Census after 2026 would be used for the delimitation of parliamentary and Assembly constituencies and apportionment of parliamentary seats among the States.
• Due to the disparity in growth rates between the States, there could be changes in the distribution of seats in Parliament.
• Due to the critical role of the census in the administration and planning of key welfare schemes, it is necessary that this census be done as early as possible.

Source: The Hindu

Mains Question:

Q. "Apart from being used to demarcate constituencies, the Census data is also vital to the administration, and the planning of key welfare schemes could be affected by the delay." Explain the statement in the context of the delay in the decadal census of India.