Religion row: Decision on expert panel deferred

New Delhi, Mar 25: The exercise to update the National Population Register (NPR) and the first phase of the Census 2021 will not be held as scheduled due to the 21-day lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, officials said on Tuesday.

Both the exercises were supposed to be carried out from April 1 to September 30.
Due to the prevailing situation, the NPR and Census exercises have been deferred till further orders, a senior home ministry official said.
The Prime Minister has announced a 21-day lockdown across the country from Tuesday night due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

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.

Bengaluru, Jun 30: In an attempt to tackle unemployment amidst covid-19 crisis, the Karnataka state government has launched a job portal connecting employers and job seekers.

The portal, 'Skill connect' ( https://skillconnect.kaushalkar.com/ ) provides region-wise and sector-wise job listings. An interested candidate can register on the portal and either apply for jobs or can also seek skill training. 

As on Monday, the portal has 25 registered companies with over 2000 jobs available in various sectors. 

The portal works more or less on similar lines as that of any private job portal, except that those posting jobs and candidates searching for employment will have to register with the Skill Development Department. 

Launching the portal on Monday, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa hoped that the portal would provide an impetus to job creation, as well as the economic revival of the state. 

Deputy Chief Minister Dr. C.N. Ashwath Narayan who is also the skill development Minister added, "All these years, there was no information and communication between job seekers and recruiters. This portal will solve that problem."

Also, until now, there hasn't been comprehensive information either on those seeking jobs or those looking for employees. The skill development efforts have not been in sync with the market. All these issues would be addressed by the portal, he said. 

According to Karnataka Skill Development Authority Managing Director Ashwin Gowda, the portal has already seen a response with about 68 applicants in just a day. 

Officials said even the organisations will have to register with the government while providing all documents concerned. The government aims to avoid any fake job advertisements through this. "We will also enable virtual interviews between the candidate and the employer," sources in the department told DH. 

Recently, the government had also launched a portal exclusively for migrants who had returned to Karnataka from other places. This was meant to work as a skill registry.

However, the portal that was launched on Monday, went a step ahead by connecting both the prospective employers and employees, according to officials in the department.