Practical Problems of Census: Commissioner clarifies

Practical Problems of Census: Commissioner clarifies

Mangalore Today News Network

Article by Shreelatha Nayak

Mangalore, May 27, 2010: The Housing Census that is presently being carried out prior to the Population Census 2011 has proved to be a tedious task for the  enumerators, complain many of them. According to several of the census enumerators, the failure of the Mangalore City Corporation authorities in providing them the area sketches or maps on time, that would have simplified their task, had created more problems for them.

 

Another complaint was that the MCC had not provided  the enumerators a three day training, but managed with a day’s training after marking their presence to be sent as a proof to the union government. It was also said even as the census commenced on April 15, the MCC did not make any arrangement to provide the completion stamps and National Population Register books, which was given much later after the enumerators visited the houses for the fourth or fifth time, forcing them to visit the houses again to stick the completion stamp. But  Mangalore City Corporation Commissioner Dr KN Vijayaprakash had something different to say. According to him, as there was delimitation of the area revenue boundary, it took nearly six to 7 days to mark the boundaries and hand them over to the enumerators.

On the complaint of the enumerators that they had to visit nearly 250 to 300 houses, while they were earlier told that they might have to visit around 150 to 175 houses, the Commissioner said  the work was distributed among the enumerators  on the basis of different blocks and not the number of houses.

On yet another complaint that they were issued the completion stamps quite late, Vijayaprakash said as per the procedures, the enumerators had to visit each house  two to three times to collect complete information and draw the sketches of the located houses. It is only after filling up all the queries in the form that  the completion stickers are given to them, he said adding accordingly the stamps were issued on April 25 as per the procedures and clarified that  it was not due to any delay.

He further said that the members of self help groups were involved during the census, to create awareness among the public on the information and details they have to provide to the enumerators during their visit according to the union government guidelines.

Explaining about the telephonic complaint registration facility available for the public, he said that City Corporation has help line service for census through which the public who are missed out of census marking can call the helpline no: 0824-2220306 and give their door number as well as area and names preferably for enumerators to visit their house, so that they could be covered in the census.