Even as the Union home minister Amit Shah championed the use of digital technology for upcoming Census, UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) has given its nod for “voluntary” use of 12-digit unique numbers for compilation of National Population Register (NPR), ET has learnt.
Once Aadhaar details are included, the NPR database would contain demographic as well as biometric particulars. “It will include 15 categories of demographic information and Aadhaar number of those who are willing to provide during NPR updation. Collection of biometrics is not been provided under Citizenship Rules,” an official said.
The home minister after laying the foundation stone of a new building of the Registrar General of India and Census Commissioner on Monday said, “Why can't we have just one card for all utilities like Aadhaar, passport, bank account, driving licence and voter card. There should be a system where all data should be put together in a single card. This is a potential. That is why digital census is very important." He, however, said there is no such plan as of now.
Shah said, “Census 2021 would be conducted in major Indian languages and on the mobile app so as to facilitate the people to easily update their details digitally, in their own language.” The government plans to spend 12,000 crore for the decadal exercise and development of NPR, a pan-India version of Assam's NRC.
According to Census 2011data, India comprises 2.4% of global land area and resources, whereas houses 17.5% of the global population. Prior to 2014, the planning process in India was piecemeal and in disconnected parts, the home minister said while explaining how Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought “change in scale of our thinking”.
Explaining the usefulness of census data, the home minister said the 2011 data was efficiently utilised under the Ujjwala Yojana. “The LPG connection beneficiaries were mapped digitally and based on the data analysis, the government got to know about the disparity in the spatial distribution of LPG connections. Today 8 crore LPG connections have been distributed in last five years and now over 95% of the people have gas connections.”
Whether it is providing clean drinking water, road connectivity, electricity, opening bank branches or health and education infrastructure, sanitation or food and civil supply, the basic planning for delivery of as many as 22 services is based on the census data. Shah also said the 2011census reflected the poor sex ratio of male and female in some states. “That's why the programme of Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao was launched,” he said.
“Under this scheme, the Haryana government has done so much work in the last five years that the state’s sex ratio is now among the best in the country,” he said.
The 2021 census will have its reference date as March 1, 2021, but for snow-bound Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand it will be October 1, 2020.