‘Drastic decrease in omission of households in census’

The omission of households during the 2011 census came down drastically when compared to the previous census, according to D. Helen Prema Kumari, Deputy Director, Directorate of Census Operations, Karnataka.

Addressing a workshop on census data dissemination at Mangalore University on Thursday, she said that the omission of households came down from 0.002 per cent in 2001 to 0.001 per cent in 2011 in the country. The error of omission in the 1991 census stood at 0.005 per cent, she said.

The omission of households comes to the notice during the revision round after the first phase of every census, she said.

Ms. Kumari said that individual information collected under the census was confidential and cannot be revealed to any one under Section 15 of the Census Act, 1948. She said that an application was filed before the directorate under the Right to Information Act seeking information on the religion status of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi mentioned in the 2011 census. The directorate did not reveal it as it was confidential.