We are a country of over a billion people, about 130 crores at last count. The decennial extravaganza that we remember as the "census", is all set to begin its ambitious journey today to tell us exactly how many more Australias we have added to the world, besides other things. Its a potential goldmine for people working with household level data. This is no April Fools' joke!
Touted as the world's largest demographic exercise, India's 2011 census will be rolled out amidst talk of a population database, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDIA), security concerns such as cross-border illegal immigration and new parameters such as the measurement of phone and PC usage, the spread of financial (e)services and availability of drinking water. Get ready to be asked questions of economic, social and cultural implications, except one obvious dimension: your caste. In a country where caste-based reservations play a crucial role in our everyday lives, from getting admits into schools and colleges to even being eligible for certain jobs, authorities have decided that self-reported data on caste beyond SCs and STs is not credible enough and therefore not worth recording. Huh? How exactly do you then get a caste certificate? How is that process credible? I've long believed that opportunities should be created for individuals on the basis of economic need, not solely on the basis of one's lineage. A poor Brahmin child deserves as much of a push as does a poor Adivasi child. Won't they together contribute toward our demographic dividend and build the pyramid? Good points now. Biometric information will be collected - fingerprints, etc. eventually feeding into the National Population Register (NPR), which in turn will help generate unique 16-digit IDs for all legal citizens, so we are finally rid of the one million ID proofs that we currently need to furnish for the simplest of tasks. Not to mention getting rid of the middleman - for attestations, validations and all those related yet completely unproductive tasks. I can hardly wait!
I've often heard overseas visitors remark "there are so many people everywhere" and they seem rather overwhelmed by the mass of humanity at railway stations, bazaars, tourist spots, places of worship and elsewhere. This is our human capital and how we nurture it today will reflect in tomorrow's gains. What some call a liability, we need to use as an asset. This leads me to my next post on quality education and equal opportunities for all. But that’s for another day. Till then, happy counting!
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