Census 2001

Census is an important national task and the Indian Census is the biggest administrative exercise of the world. It is conducted once in a decade under the section 243(d) of Constitution of India and is executed under The Census Act 1948. It is carried out in two phases. The first page encompasses the preparation of the household schedule whereas the second phase is targeted at the population enumeration.

The latest census has been carried out in the year 2000-2001, whereat the first phase was conducted during April-May 2000, while the second phase is between 6th February 2001 to 5th May 2001).

Government of Gujarat has appointed Surat Municipal Commissioner as the Principal Census Office and City Engineer as the City Census Officer for this latest census with the jurisdiction area of Surat Municipal Corporation limit & out-growth area of the city.

Surat Municipal Corporation has carried out the entire exercise well within the time frame stipulated for the same due to its altogether different approach. For the ease of administration and conduct the two phase exercise was converted into a three phase exercise with inclusion of the planning and initialization phase. All the three phases are as listed below :

PHASE 1 : Planning and Initialisation

• SMC deputed a staff of 16 persons comprising of Assistant Engineers, Junior Engineers, Supervisors, Draftsmen and Tracers at the Election and Census Cell.

• 84 Surveyors were recruited on a temporary basis.

• All the residential and non-residential building were surveyed and thereafter Census blocks were defined in accordance with following guidelines

  • Permanent natural separators like roads, river, creek, railway line, etc were treated as the limiting boundary of the block.

  • Each block comprised of nearly 150 to 180 buildings.

  • Those houses which had roof but were under construction were also enlisted

• All the houses were numbered using yellow crayons and care was taken that no house remained unnumbered.

• Necessary and sufficient Awareness was created in the citizens for this phase by advertising in the local newspaper.

• Maps were prepared for each block showing the site condition and Residential status of the buildings, geographical features and landmarks of the block, etc

PHASE 2 : Preparation of Household Schedule

• The Special Officer [Election and Census] was appointed as the Charge Officer [Administration] and the responsibility to co-ordinate the administrative work like framing of the blocks vis-à-vis the geographical condition and population, recruitment of enumerators and supervisors, allotment of literature to them, training them, creating awareness in the public, etc.

• All the zonal officers of SMC were also appointed as the charge officers and they were given the responsibility of coordinating and supervising the field work of enumerators and supervisors allotted to their respective area.

• Subcharge officers were appointed to work under the charge officers and all the charge officers and the subcharge officers were imparted necessary training in two phases by the Census Office, Ahmedabad in March 2000.

• The Supervisors and Enumerators recruited were placed under the subcharge officers and were allotted their respective area. They were imparted training in two rounds using a multimedia projector and an multimedia CD developed by the Director of Census Operation.

• Overall a task force of more than 5800 persons was working to achieve this goal which is represented as below:

• Along with the preparation of the household schedule, the family identification survey was also carried out. Other information like primary facilities available to the family like independent bedroom, drinking water, electricity, sanitation, drainage facilities, kitchen, etc and other facilities available like radio, television, telephone, vehicle, banking, etc. were also gathered.

PHASE 3 : Population Enumeration

• The census blocks were reformed based on the Household schedule so that each enumerator will enumerate a block of 500 to 1000 persons.

• A block consisting more than 1000 persons was split into two whereas a block consisting of less than 500 persons was coupled with other such adjoining block to meet the criterion of 500 to 1000 persons per block.

• The guidelines for the formation of the block enlisted in phase I were still adhered to while reformation of the blocks.

• Thus based on the initial household schedule consisting of 5154 blocks an abridged household schedule of 5154 blocks was prepared.

• A Task force of about 4500 persons was used for this phase which is enlisted in the table below :

  Post Numbers In charge of  Charge Officer 9 Approximately 500 to 950 blocks Subcharge Officer 76 Approximately 60 blocks Supervisor 645 Six blocks Enumerator 3894 One block

• Alike the previous phase the Charge officers and the Subcharge Officers were imparted training in two rounds by the Census Office, Ahmedabad in two rounds in November-December 2000. Whereas the enumerators and the supervisors were imparted training in two rounds in April 2000.

• Individual details like age, marital status, age at marriage, caste and subcaste, mother tongue, other languages known, educational status, physical/mental disability, financial activities, mode of transportation, place of birth, place of last residence, reason for migration, pregnancy details for women, agricultural details, etc. were collected.

For all the phases listed above all the publicity necessary and sufficient to create the public awareness was done by using various media like :

• Handbills  detailing the importance of the exercise were distributed amongst the citizen.

• Posters were displayed at numerous locations throughout the city.

• Back-lit Board were put at important traffic junctions and important public places.

• Slide and Public messages were shown in theatres and on Television through channel network.

• Publicity Van were used so that the importance of the exercise can be understood even by the most remote places.

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