C Chandramouli, 49, the Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer of 1985 batch, is overseeing the mammoth exercise of counting nearly 1.2 billion heads. He took time off his busy schedule to speak to Trithesh Nandan about Census 2011.

Excerpts from the interview:

A census is not just a simple head count. Tell us about the process and its implications.
The census is the basis for reviewing the progress of the country in the past decade, monitoring the schemes of the government and plan for the future. It is important in many aspects. Last time, we came to know from the census about the alarming decline in the sex ratio, after which a lot of states have made several interventions in this regard like the act about banning sex determination. So it would be interesting to see what impact such interventions make... whether the sex ratio has declined further  compared to the 1991 and 2001 data. Similarly, the housing side, total sanitation campaign, improving access to trains - whether that has made any impact. These are the important things which we will get from the data collected. So the slogan of Census 2011 is “Our Census, Our Future.”

Home minister P Chidambaram has said that an exercise of this kind has not been attempted anywhere else in the world. How is this census unique?
Actually, he was referring to the National Population Register (NPR). On this scale of a billion-plus people, it has not been attempted anywhere else in the world.

What about China?
China does it on the provincial level. There is no single agency like us. Only single type of questions are asked all over the country. It is not a unified kind of thing. In India, it is a unified type of census.

So, what is the National Population Register (NPR) then?
The NPR is the register of usual residents. It marks a milestone in this census as the NPR will also be prepared. The idea behind doing NPR was conceived after the Kargil war in 1999 where they recommended a card for the citizens and another card for non-citizens. After that, a pilot (project) was conducted all over the country. It revealed that the issue of citizenship is an extremely difficult matter especially in the rural areas where people have no documents to prove even their birth records or don’t even have land records. Women who are married in other villages carry nothing with them. So, finally it was decided by the government that determination of citizenship can follow later. But now we need a register of usual residents. Then it was decided that it will be done along with the census of 2011.

It has been more than a month since the census began. What is the progress till date?
The actual preparation began two years back. So far so good, there is no report of anything adverse. In some states there is a logistical complaint that forms are not reaching in time or some want additional forms. Generally, so far, things have been running very smoothly. We are not facing any big problems.

Tell us more about the gigantic operation.
We have divided work into areas of 125 houses each. It is not a big or gigantic job from that point of view. When we have one enumerator covering only 125 houses, it amounts to three houses per day and in 45 days they will cover the whole area. Because more than 25 lakh people are at work. We are not doing anything impossible. We have broken the entire process into small pieces. So, each enumerator is given a job of covering 125 houses and more than 600 people. It is not a burden for them either.

What is the deadline for every state?
Every state has deadline of 45 days. So those states which started the census on April 1 will have to complete the exercise on May 15. By June we will start processing the data. Those states where the process started on April 7 and April 15 will finish the process in the stipulated time of 45 days.

Do you see the data being collected?
We have directors in every state who see all requirements. They keep reporting to us.

Is reporting done to you done on a daily basis?
Yes, they report to me on the daily basis. And if there is any problem, we sort it out quickly.

How have you trained your enumerators?
We have detailed instruction manuals in 18 languages. So, standard instructions are devised and then translated into the 18 languages. Then we have a cascade of training. At the national level we have trained 90 people. Those 90 have trained 725 people at the state level, who in turn have trained 54,000 trainers at the district level. They now train the rest of the enumerators who are in lakhs. It is very systemic training from the national level to the local level.

The census this time is going to include biometric information like fingerprints.
It is not just fingerprint. We will take information of two irises (for all persons aged 15 years and above), all the 10 fingers' prints and photographs. This makes it more complicated. But it will be done by arranging camps at every village and at the ward level in every town.

Do you have a collaboration with any organisation?
Yes, for training we have collaboration with all consortiums of the UN bodies. They all have joined together for support and training for the census.

What about the floating population? How will you count them?
See, the census is in two parts. First is the house listing which is going on and second is the main listing which will be conducted after the first phase is over. The second phase will be done during February 9-28. So the house-less population is counted at that time. On the night of February 28, enumerators will go and cover them. They might be here and there, so it is done on the last day of the census.

If a person working in Delhi but is originally from another state, where will he be counted?
You will be counted here in Delhi, the state of current residence. The enumerators will ask the family members that the persons whose data is being given are living in the same place or not.

How are the Indians living abroad counted in the census?
The census is for those people who live in India as we are counting the usual residents of the country. We are not including the NRIs. If a person is staying at a particular place in India for six months in the past one year or intends to stay there for at least six months, they will be covered.

What about those who are living in India illegally? Will they also be counted?
Everybody who is a resident of this country (will be counted). I am again and again repeating that we don’t go and check whether you are a citizen of this country. But if you are a resident of this country and living in India, I need a count.

Who are not counted in this census?
Those with diplomatic status are left out in the census. Even if you are a foreigner and do not have diplomatic status, you will be counted in the NPR.
The census this time will collect information like ownership of mobile phones, computers and internet, treated/untreated drinking water facility and usage of banking services.
Census has no interest in any particular data as such. This is done on the behalf of data users.

Who are these data users?
Government departments, private sectors, government users, public sector - anybody can come and ask for data and we will see to it that data is given. The expert committee will look after all the data once the data comes. The beauty of the census is that we don’t have any programmes of our own. If I was in charge of electricity, my interest would be to show that the electricity sector is doing very well – such as, electricity has reached all villages or not. But here in the census we will come to know if the electricity has reached all the villages, how many households are using electricity. If you say gas connections have now increased, we would like to know how many gas connections have reached the households. Ours is an unbiased report every 10 years. We say that we are taking a snapshot of the population.

What about those who don’t have a mobile connection, computers, land records and so on?
That’s all we should highlight about that. The idea is to know how many people don’t have such things in their households.

What steps have been taken for the protection of data so that it is not stolen and misuse it?
We don’t collect individual data in the census. Yes, we want to know about the phones but not the (telephone) number. We will not reveal that data to everyone. It is just a few data items like the electoral roll, the name, father’s name and certain identities which we will give.

Is RGI carrying out any awareness campaign?
We have put our advertisements in the print and electronic media. The government has given funds to every state for publicity. There may be some local drama, local art forms, beating of the pom-pom in the villages.

Unique Identification Authority of India chairman Nandan Nilekani has told Governance Now that there is some collaboration with the RGI office on census.
As I have mentioned, once we have authenticated the data, we will send the data to the gram sabha/ward committee. They will have to give clearance or objection within a fixed period of time. The lists thus authenticated will then be sent to the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) for de-duplication and the issue of UID numbers. The cleaned database along with the UID number will then be sent back to the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner and would form the NPR.

So you give data to the UID project. What is the link between NPR and UIDAI?
We are one of the registrars of the UIDAI. They will collect data from various sources. We are one of the sources for UIDAI.

What about the caste-based census? Some political leaders are in favour of enumerating OBCs?
That is the policy decision of the government. The government has taken a decision, since 1951, that in the independent India caste would not be taken in the census. Unless the government changes the policy, we are in no position to comment on the government’s decision.
The matter is in the Supreme Court.
A number of courts have agitated (on the issue). The matter being a policy decision, only the government can take such a decision. We only implement that policy.

Are you prepared if the government wants to include the caste in the census?
It is not feasible to do caste-based census in the current census. First, a policy decision has to be taken by the government and then the implementation part comes. As of now, the policy itself is not to do a caste-based census. [The interview was conducted before the government gave the go-ahead to caste-based census.]

Are you ready for such a census?
We are not prepared for such a census. We have never been asked to do that.

Are you making the exercise more gender-sensitive?
Yes. The special emphasis is on gender, the disabled, children, elderly. It is usually found that these are the people who are left out. So we have a special emphasis in the training session that they all should be covered. Actually, these are the vulnerable sections. First is the elderly, second is the very young, then the women and the classes in society who are deprived or disabled. We have a special emphasis to cover them.

What are your challenges? How will you do census in the Maoist-affected areas? Are your officials equipped to do census work in the disturbed areas?
This is done by the local collectors, tehsildars and their revenue staffs. They are the best judge to say whether they (can) reach out or not. We are giving training to the local enumerators. Finally, it is the decision of the local governments on how to conduct census in such areas. Till the whole exercise is over, we will not know whether they attempted to go there or were not allowed to do it. That will come up only later. But our preparations are for a full count.

If some enumerators say that Maoists did not let them go in those areas…
Local authorities will have to determine whether it is a fact or not. I need a report on how many villages they were not able to cover.

Will you give them any directions?
How can we give them directions? They will report to us about how many villages they were not able visit.

What kind of technology are you using for the census?
The point is not technology but people. The use of technology comes only after enumerators have gone around and collected the data. For the processing of the information we can use the technology but not in the collection of data, which is only done in the physical (manner). We are basically dependent on the humans. Twenty-five lakh people who are involved are going to collect the information. Then to process the information in tables and data we would use technology. We are using the intelligent character recognition (ICR) software, which will automatically read the characters. It was first used in the Indian census in 2001. It has now become more sophisticated in the 2011 census. We have a better, improved version of the software. Machines have also improved. So, technology only comes into play in data processing and data determination. The ICR has enabled processing of the voluminous data in a very short time, saving a huge amount of manual labour and cost.

How will you ensure against  duplication of data during enumeration?
Yes, the quality of data. There is also a post enumeration survey. We go back and check how much information is correct and how much area was covered. In every census we also give some sense of confidence. Five percent confidence or what is the confidence in the data.

How much is the confidence in the earlier data?
So far it is in the range of less than two percent. But it itself is big margin if we see the size of the country. So when you say that so many people are left out we are also giving information that so much people were left out of the census by doing this post enumeration census.

So are you trying to reduce the margin of error?
That is always the effort.

Do you expect any surprise in this census?
If we know what is going to be surprise then it won’t be a surprise.

Some Important Facts of this Census

Census 2011 is the 15 th census in the country, seventh since the independence.
Census is done in two phases:
April to September 2010: House listing and housing census and collection of data on NPR) February 9-28, 2011: Population enumeration
For the first time, the National Population Register will also be prepared along with the census.
Two forms will be canvassed in each household. The first relates to the houselisting and housing census. In this, 35 questions will be canvassed. The second form relates to the NPR and has 15 questions.
Census in numbers
25,42,934 census officials will fan out
11,631 tonnes of paper will be used
64 crore schedules being printed in 16 languages
81 lakh instruction manuals printed in 18 languages
Rs 5,956 crore is the Total expenditure, out of which Rs 3,756 crore will be spent on the NPR.