Bengaluru, Feb 24: Census authorities in Karnataka have requested deputy commissioners in the state’s districts to hold outreach and awareness campaigns about the National Population Register (NPR), as they fear misgivings about the exercise could hurt the forthcoming enumeration of population.
The house-listing phase of the Census and updating of NPR will be rolled out simultaneously by mid-April in the BJP-ruled state.
About 1,50,000 enumerators will handle the massive exercise.
Officials believe widespread awareness will help address concerns about the NPR data-gathering process and make people cooperate with enumerators when they visit houses for both NPR and census work.
“Sensing the kind of questions that enumerators may face when they do house visits, in all video conferences with deputy commissioners of districts, we have requested to establish contact with local representatives,” SB Vijay Kumar, director of Census Operations in Karnataka told news agency. “We have asked them to organise outreach programmes to ensure that people’s doubts are resolved before the information gathering work begins,” he added.
Census operations are handled by the Union home ministry. Several district officials are said to have raised concerns about the possibility of people refusing to share information when the work on the census and NPR begins in two months. This would affect the quality of the census work, making the exercise incomplete.
news channel earlier reported that people in parts of Karnataka had declined to share personal information with officials visiting households in connection with government programmes, suspecting them of gathering data for the yet-to-be unveiled National Register of Citizens, following enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) recently.
Kumar said district authorities will train and sensitise enumerators to tread carefully while gathering information. Enumerators will be told not to demand information but seek it gently.
“We will tell enumerators to proactively engage with people. For instance, if an old man in a village does not know his exact date or place of birth, the enumerator may engage in a conversation with the person that may elicit some anecdotes and roughly establish the year and the place of birth,” the census director said.
As of now, the NPR questionnaire has 21queries, but officials say it has not yet been finalised.
With most of the census and NPR data gathering and storage happening digitally this time, the challenge before census officials is to convince people that the data would remain safe.
“Individual data is sealed and all that we can see is collective data. The information is consolidated and tailor-made. We are telling district officials to create awareness about data safety as well,” Kumar said.
The doctor met Megharikh days after former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy suggested that the Hublot watch worn by Siddaramaiah might be Shetty's. Shetty clarified that he was in no way connected to the Hublot watch and the controversy involving Siddaramaiah and Kumaraswamy.
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Neither anyone made a big hue and cry when Kumaraswamy son drove Hummer nor during his sweet heart exit.
I don't find anything wrong if someone wear genuine gifted watch.
CM caliber person will be gifted that way. No one expect that he should be gifted Titan.
What About Modi's Khurta and shoes.
it costs more than this watch .
What about other leaders.
I would like to buy one such watch...what is there in having such watch by a Chief Minister...it will increase the image of him...it is not an issue at all for people since is doing tremendous amount of good work......Kumara Swami must be put behind bar for accumulating billions of property through corrupt way....shameless creature....
Hublot advertisement watch company will send one more watch to CM for advertise
Hublot got free ad. C.M. Ibrahim made Rolex famous. In future many rich people will start buying Hublot.
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