The first socio-economic and caste census is likely to begin in the Chennai Corporation limits in April.
The Corporation has kicked off preparatory work on 64 ‘charge centres' in the city and the civic body will soon start the training programme for 3,410 enumerators who will ask residents a range of questions, including those pertaining to their caste.
A data entry operator would accompany every enumerator to record the socio economic data in a Tablet PC. The data would be uploaded daily at the charge centre and the entire process of census would be available online on a daily basis. The enumeration, proposed by the Government of India, is likely to throw light on the number of people belonging to each caste and socio economic group in the city. The data would be collected in 40 days. After the compilation, a click of a mouse would fetch any civic body official data, including the number of hawkers, beggars, cobblers, artisans, security guards, coolies, plumbers, ragpickers or any other workers.
The data complied by the enumerators would also hold the key for deciphering various socio-economic challenges unique to neighbourhoods in Chennai and planning appropriate interventions.
The hand-held devices, census material, layout maps and other equipment for the census operation have already been readied by the Directorate of Census Operations for handing over to the Chennai Corporation. Training for national master trainers was completed in Hyderabad recently.
The enumeration in 12,416 blocks in Chennai would begin after 3,410 enumerators, 574 supervisors and 80 master trainers get trained by the civic body with the technical support of the Government of India. Every enumeration block would have 100-125 households with a population of around 700. The blocks for the socio-economic and caste census would be the same as that of the second phase of Census 2011 conducted in February-March 2011.
