The Socio Caste Economic Census (SECC)-2011 which began in October last year will come to an end in a day. The MEPMA Managing Director and SECC 2011 nodal officer M. Bhupal Reddy has asked the urban local bodies, including Vijayawada, to complete the process by Wednesday. According to information, as many as 9,303 enumeration blocks in the district were covered in four phases with each phase spanning over 10 days. The SECC teams covered 11.29 lakh households in Machilipatnam, Gudivada, Vijayawada, Nuzvid, Jaggaiahpeta, and Pedana. In Vijayawada alone, there were 2,332 enumeration blocks 2.90 lakh households. More than 465 enumerators knocked every door in the city to take socio economic census.
The State government roped in staff from Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC), Irrigation, Transco, Revenue, Education, and Excise to complete the exercise. A major chunk of the data has been uploaded into the NIC site. A few technical problems such as mismatching or missing of Abridged House List (AHL) and TIFF images cropped in Vijayawada. The rectification is being carried out. The voters' list would be announced shortly.
Initially, the enumerators showed least interest in the SECC 2011. The reason was that they had not been paid salary for the work done in February.
Sometime ago, the absence of clarity over remuneration to data entry operators and enumerators is hitting the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) in the city. The enumeration staff agitated against officials coming up with ‘new rules' over the remuneration to be paid to them. They said the Corporation promised them a salary of Rs. 10,000 to Rs.12,000 per month. However, the VMC officials denying it, saying the enumeration staff misunderstood their statement that the enumerators could earn up to Rs.12,000 in three months.
Unique feature
The SECC-2011 is first-ever socio-economic and caste census post-Independence. A unique feature of this census is that the enumerators used specially designed handheld devices and the data collected would be fed directly into the computers. This data collection was entirely paper-free survey as a low-cost handheld device was used for the collection of data. The device, a tablet PC, will reduce the time for collecting and processing data.
