Pencils will no longer be used in the ongoing social and educational survey, with the State government on Friday making it mandatory for enumerators to carry out the process of filling the questionnaires using pens only.
Social Welfare Minister H. Anjaneya made this clear following large-scale complaints from the public that enumerators were filling details in pencil, giving rise to doubts that the data might be altered later.
He said that a call centre, set up to receive complaints on the survey, had been getting about 500 complaints a day on various issues.
Responding to another complaint that enumerators were conducting the survey at public places in villages instead of visiting individual houses, the government made it mandatory to conduct the survey only at homes.
Mr. Anjaneya warned of disciplinary action against enumerators if they failed to visit individual houses.
He also made it clear that enumerators would face action if all the 55 questions listed in the survey are not posed.
Replying to queries on the authenticity of the survey in the wake of media reports that the enumerators had wrongly filled the questionnaire of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah himself, the Minister said a three-layer verification mechanism had been set in place to crosscheck the data taken by the enumerators before feeding it into the system.
Also, the data would be available on the Social Welfare Department’s website for viewing as well as correction by general public in case of an error, he said.
The data bank related to property mapping, Aadhaar and Elector’s Photo Identity Cards had been linked with the ongoing survey’s software so that there would be an alert if there was some mismatch in the statistics, he explained.
Though only about 8 per cent of families had been surveyed so far, he expressed confidence that it would be possible to complete the survey of the entire State by April 30.
Enumerators will face action if all the 55 questions listed in the survey are not posed
