Union Budget: Centre cuts Census 2021 allocation to ₹1,309 crore
The Centre has repeatedly maintained that the decennial exercise has been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Centre has reduced the budget for Census 2021, which has been stalled for over four years now, from ₹3,768 crore in 2021-22 to ₹1,309 crore in the Union Budget 2024-25, casting doubts on the exercise this year as well.
The difference in the funds is lesser than last year’s allocation of ₹1,564 crore; this amount was later revised to ₹578 crore.
Slamming the government for delaying the exercise, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, “It is highly disappointing that the finance minister’s announcement on data and statistics makes no mention of releasing funds for the decadal population census that was supposed to have taken place in 2021 but has still not been conducted. This is the first time since Independence that the Government has failed to conduct a census on time.”
“The consequences on the state’s administrative capabilities are serious – one example being the 10-12 crore individuals who have been excluded from the ambit of the National Food Security Act. It also means that the government will likely continue to avoid a socio-economic caste census, despite calls from its own NDA partners for the same,” he said.
Originally, when the Union cabinet on December 24, 2019, decided to carry out Census 2021, it had approved the proposal for conducting Census of India 2021 at a cost of ₹8,754.23 crore and updating the National Population Register (NPR) at an expenditure of ₹3,941.35 crore. This means that the entire exercise is likely to cost around ₹12,000 crore.
The Centre has repeatedly maintained that the decennial exercise has been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The decennial exercise was previously extended from December 31, 2020, to December 2021, and then by another six months, each, till December 2022.
Originally, the fieldwork of house-listing and housing Census, the first phase of Census 2021, along with the updating of NPR was to be conducted in a period of 45 days during April-September 2020 in different states and Union Territories, depending on their local conditions and other priorities. After the house listing, the population enumeration was to be done between February 9 and 28, 2021.
The Census 2021 will be the first digital census giving the citizens an opportunity to self-enumerate. The NPR has been made compulsory for citizens who want to exercise the right to fill the census form on their own rather than through government enumerators. For this, the census authority has designed a self-enumeration portal which is yet to be launched.