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.
Comments
Vinaasha kalakke vipareetha budhi
I dont understand, why media giving attention to this rubbish speech.. He just wanted media attention. and also he wanted to thrill his followers..
Nalin Kumar Kateel is no. 1 terrorist. Once he told, he wanted to burn entire Mangalore.
Shakha trained bhakt ! Modi & Shah are very happy on his comment on CM. Nalin Don't worry you are eligible represent educated Mangalorean (?) in forth coming Parliament election -2019.
This kateel is delivering an election speech or mocking himself?
An uneducated goon who threatened to set entire Dakshina Kannada district on fire is a desh bhakt. And a farmers’ leader turned politician who upheld the concept of Kalnaya Rajya is a terrorist. What a joke.
Katilanna.. First learn language. The meaning of Sultan is King. You are hailing him as king. King will be terrorists for only terrorists.
I think politics of this region is a curse. There is no boundries to the wild allegation and lies that these politicians utter. I think we have to play back some of his terrorism speeches including burning of DK speech.
The only way we can stop BJP getting back to power in Karnataka is to switch to ballot system.
What they think they can fool all Kannadigas, as they did in North East, UP.
Unfortunately the people in that regions are very innocent. They don’t understand how they are being fooled by their leaders specially Modi and Amit Shah.
Now their own people are fed up of them. Many secular leaders left the BJP and jointed Congress.
Kateel is very lucky to be a MP who really does not deserve to be Grama Panchayat member.
The cleanest CM is Siddaramiah, in the recent generation, like very few CM s we had in the past like Nijalingappa, Kadidal Manjappa. He never indulged in single bribery or corruption.
He is Very straight and strong leader, who has always worry for the people. But our stupid opposition want to destroy him for their selfishness at the cost suffering of poor people.
May God almighty help our people to understand the fact and elect the best leaders.
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