Caste census in last stage, halting it will cause loss to exchequer: Bihar govt to HC

The Bihar government has already spent around ₹115 crore for the ongoing caste survey, the Patna high court was informed on Monday.

The Bihar government has already spent around ₹115 crore for the ongoing caste survey and any efforts to stall the exercise, which is in its final stage, will cause immense loss to the state exchequer, the Patna high court was informed on Monday.

Patna: Enumerator staff receive information from residents during the second phase of caste census, in Patna. (PTI)

The Nitish Kumar-led government made the statement in an affidavit in response to a petition filed by Youth for Equality on April 29, challenging and seeking an interim stay on the survey.

The first round of the survey was held between January 7 and 21. The second phase began on April 15 and will continue till May 15.

In its counter affidavit, the government said that it has already spent around ₹115 crore and has to pay another ₹11.6 crore for printing more than 30 million forms for the survey.

“The Bihar caste based survey, 2022, was now in last stage of completion and any impediment will not only cost a heavy loss to the public exchequer of the state, but the objective of developments of poor, deprived and needy people shall also be denied,” the state’s counter affidavit to the petition said. HT has seen a copy of the affidavit.

Hearing the matter earlier in the day, a division bench of chief justice K Vinod Chandran and justice Madhuresh Prasad found that the government’s counter-affidavit was not placed on record. It then agreed to advocate general PK Shahi’s request to adjourn the hearing by a day, and directed the state to file the counter affidavit during the day.

In its affidavit, the government also dismissed the petitioner’s contention that ₹500 crore had been set aside from the Bihar Contingency funds to meet the expenditure pertaining to the exercise. It said that a regular budget provision was made in the first supplementary budget (2022-23) for the survey.

The state also allayed fears that the survey intended to cause caste divisions in the society. “...(It will) help the state to identify the deprived and destitute groups for whom special targeted policies and programmes need to be formulated and implemented for their upliftment and it will be effective in correcting the societal inequalities,” the affidavit said.

The high court is hearing a bunch of public interest litigations (PILs) against the caste survey. The state, however, has filed just one counter-affidavit in response to all the petitions.

The Bihar government launched the caste survey exercise on January 7. It plans to compile data on each family both in physical form and digitally through a mobile application as part of the eight-level survey — from the panchayat to the district level. The exercise is being completed in two phases. In the first phase, the number of all households in the state were counted. In the second phase, data pertaining to people of all castes and religions are being collected.

For the survey, an estimated population of 127 million in over 25 million households across 38 districts, which have 534 blocks and 261 urban local bodies, is being covered.