Date:13/07/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/07/13/stories/2006071318340200.htm

Tamil Nadu - Madurai

Preparations for next census by year-end

Shastry V.Mallady

Experimental enumeration will be done in few places

Madurai: The preparatory work for the next census to be carried out in 2011 in the State will begin towards the end of this year itself by undertaking a sample enumeration in a few places.

Called as `Pre-Testing of next census', this exercise would be an experimental enumeration of data that sets the tone for the national level census.

According to N. Ravichandran, Deputy Director of Census Operations-Tamil Nadu, the model questions for census schedule would be decided after discussions at the national level that finalise the components of enumeration.

He said here on Wednesday that the schedule would be given to the State Government and the District Collectors would be Principal Census Officers.

"Some aspects have to be added because there are new villages, new panchayats and various other factors that took shape since the previous census undertaken in 2001. All the details for the enumeration process would be finalised at the data users conference", he said.

Mr. Ravichandran was here to participate in a one-day workshop on `Census Data Dissemination', organised by the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Madurai Kamaraj University.

Stating that every population census would have some new features for enumeration, he said the last census gave huge information on subjects such as slums and the population of the disabled persons.

The special training for enumerators to be deployed on field would be given in 2009, he said and added that there would be one enumerator for every 700 to 750 population.

Earlier, addressing the participants at the workshop, Mr. Ravichandran said that census was not just about population count since it covered a variety of socio-geographic information like migration, fertility, religion, workers' population, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, electricity availability, type of cooking fuel used, building material, etc.

The census enumeration was done in two phases-house-listing and population count, he explained and urged the people to ensure that the process of birth registration and death certificates were followed without fail.

P. Maruthamuthu, Vice-Chancellor, Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU), in his inaugural address, stressed that census was important for any country and it helped economists, scientists, sociologists and for all components of national planning.

T. Vasanthakumaran from the Department of Geography, University of Madras, and N. Krishnan, Head and Coordinator of School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, MKU, spoke.