Census to be launched from April 1

Beginning with President Pratibha Patil on Thursday, nearly 25 lakh enumerators will go door-to-door during the next six months to ask questions ranging from the kind of roof you have over your head to the number of mobile phones owned by your family.

Beginning with President Pratibha Patil on Thursday, nearly 25 lakh enumerators will go door-to-door during the next six months to ask questions ranging from the kind of roof you have over your head to the number of mobile phones owned by your family.

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The house-listing census — that precedes the headcount in February — will also involve creating India’s first comprehensive identity database, the population register, that will enable the Unique Identification Authority issue unique ID numbers.

Home Secretary G K Pillai said this was the first time that enumerators would gather information about the number of mobile phones, access to internet and banking facilities and ascertain if the tap water was treated, or untreated.

He said the National Population Register (NPR) would be created in which the government will have the entire population under one database. “Once the NPR is completed we will have the photographs of the entire population.”

Assam will be the only state that will create a register of citizens in the first phase.