Make it count

The 2021 census presents us with an opportunity to right the wrongs.

The Central Bureau of Statistics is preparing to conduct the country’s most comprehensive census later this year in May and June. The last headcount conducted in 2011 was embroiled in controversies for under-representing people from different categories like religious minorities and caste groups. Early on, members of the Citizen Observation Committee were also certain that the information of the census would be inaccurate as they found the teachers, who had been hired as supervisors and enumerators, were not well trained in data collection besides other discrepancies at the census sites. The census report had also drawn flak from various quarters for data manipulation.