With the decadal Census exercise pending since 2021 and unlikely to be conducted this year, at least two other key reports on births and deaths in the country have not been released by the Union Home Ministry for the past five years.
The “Vital Statistics of India Based on the Civil Registration System” and “The Report on Medical Certification of Cause of Death” were last released for the year 2020. The annual “Crime in India” report by the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) for the year 2023 is also yet to be released.
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According to the 2020 Civil Registration System report, Vital Statistics is a compilation of the “occurrence and characteristics of vital events such as births, deaths and stillbirths” recorded across the country, and is “invaluable for planning, monitoring and evaluating various programmes related to primary healthcare, family planning, maternal and child health, and education”, among others. States send their statistics to the Registrar-General of India.
In 2023, the Centre enacted The Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Act, 2023, which mandated that all births and deaths in the country occurring from October 1, 2023 were to be digitally registered through the Central portal crsorgi.gov.in. The Centre hence has access to real-time data.
According to publicly available information, States and Union Territories such as Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi, Chandigarh, Mizoram, Goa, Arunachal Pradesh have published reports till the year 2022. The last published Vital Statistics report for Kerala was for 2021 and Mizoram was the only State to have the report for 2023.
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The Census, which was to be conducted in 2020-21, was initially delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic but persistent demands from Opposition parties for caste enumeration appears to have held up the exercise now.
According to a senior government official, while deliberations on ways and measures to count caste numbers were held for the past few months, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was not in a hurry to roll out the Census. Other than Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST), caste-wise population had not been enumerated in Independent India.
In 2011, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) conducted the first ever caste count under the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC), separate from the Census exercise, but the findings were never made public.
According to an affidavit submitted by the Union government in 2021, the SECC data fraught with “mistakes and inaccuracies” had thrown up more than 46 lakh caste names, while the 1931 Census recorded only 4,147 such names.
“For the Census to happen this year, the government should have issued the notification by November 2024. The 10-month period for conducting Census in two phases usually starts from April 1 and since it will be the first digital Census, more than 30 lakh enumerators would require fresh training, which takes three to four months,” said a former Census official.
No separate allocation for conducting the Census was made in the Union Budget.
Another official said though a final decision was awaited, around 24 lakh enumeration blocks were already finalised and training would not require much time as enumerators were trained in 2019 before the first phase of the Census — the House Listing and Housing Schedule — that was to begin from April 1, 2020.
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According to D. Sathiyavan, Head-in-Charge, Centre For Population Studies, University of Madras, a fresh Census was essential to understand the composition of population and demographic changes in the country.
“The Census data in use is 13 years old, fresh census is essential to understand the composition of population, to understand the working age group, household expenditure, demographic profile, population below poverty line and vital parameters such as births and deaths….. the caste details are necessary for implementation of reservation,” Dr. Sathiyavan said.
S. Irudaya Rajan, Chair, International Institute of Migration and Development, said that policies were being driven without data.
“Only few people are bothered about data. If they [government] wanted to conduct the Census, they should have already started preparations. Policymakers are not interested. The new government came in 2014 and there has been no Census since then,” he said.
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On February 1, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said this was the first time since Independence that the government had failed to conduct Census on time.
“The consequences on the State’s administrative capabilities are serious — one example being 10-12 crore individuals who have been excluded from the ambit of the National Food Security Act/Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana. It also means that the Government will most certainly continue to avoid Socio-Economic Caste Census,” Mr. Ramesh had said.
Published – February 05, 2025 10:50 pm IST
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