The social and educational survey has recorded only 27 per cent progress in Hassan district, prompting the district administration to put pressure on enumerators to speed up the process. Senior officials are convening meetings to ensure that the survey, which began on April 11, covered all households by April 30.
K.N. Balaram, District Officer of Backward Classes and Minorities (DO-BCM), who is in-charge of the survey here, told The Hindu on Friday that initially, the pace of census was quite slow. “We have conducted meetings to speed up the process. We are confident of completing the process on schedule,” he said. Deputy Commissioner Umesh H. Kusugal convened a couple of meetings to discuss this issue and even visited taluk headquarters to review the progress.
Meanwhile, the enumerators are of the view that the data cannot be collected in a hurry. “Each enumerator has been assigned with 150 houses. People take a little time to produce Aadhaar card and bank documents, which are essential to fill the information in the prescribed format. Sometimes, we spend more than an hour on completing the enumeration in one household,” said an enumerator, on the condition of anonymity.
There were reports of the procedure set for survey being violated. Two enumerators, who had been assigned to cover Veeradevanahalli in Halebid hobli of Belur taluk, had made the residents assemble at the government higher primary school in the village and help them complete enumeration quickly. Mr. Balaram said that the incident had come to his notice. “We have instructed the enumerators to undertake door-to-door survey. Steps will be initiated to avoid recurrence of such instances,” he said.
Surprisingly, Mr. Kusugal had himself violated the procedure on the day of launching the survey. When the enumerator went to Mr. Kusugal’s residence for collecting the information, the latter was not available there. Later, the designated enumerator was asked to meet him (Mr. Kusugal) at the district stadium.
Asked if providing information at a public place, instead of the residence, Mr. Balaram said that the enumerator had already collected the necessary information from the family members of Mr. Kusugal. The enumerator only took Mr. Kusugal’s signature on the format at the public programme, he said.
District administration conducting meetings and requesting enumerators to speed up the process
‘In many houses, people take a long time to produce Aadhaar card and bank documents’
