The Office of the Registrar General of India (RGI) has said that deliberations and file notings regarding the Central government’s announcement in 2018 to collect data on Other Backward Classes (OBC) as part of Census 2021, is not available with its office. The RGI, in its response to an RTI query filed by The Hindu , added that data on castes, communities and OBCs, other than the notified Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, are not collected in the Census.
On August 31, 2018, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had announced that OBC data will be collected for the first time during the next Census exercise. The press release, titled “Union Home Minister reviews preparation for Census 2021”, said: “It is also envisaged to collect data on OBC for the first time.”
The first phase of 2021 Census — The House listing and Housing Census that was to be conducted along with the update of the National Population Register (NPR) from April 1, 2020 — has been indefinitely postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The RGI that works under the administrative control of the MHA conducts the decennial Census exercise.
In response to the RTI application pertaining to the deliberations that took place in RGI’s office before the announcement in 2018 to collect data on OBCs was made, the office replied “the information sought in the RTI application is not available with the undersigned.”
The reply added, “It may be informed that the Office of the RGI in MHA is conducting decennial population Census since 1951 in which it collects and publishes data on various socio-demographic profiles of the people of India including those of the notified Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) of all States and Union Territories. The data on the castes/communities/OBCs, other than the notified SCs and STs are not collected in Census.” It said the last Census was conducted in 2011.
Centre filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court on September 23 where it ruled out conducting a Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC), stating that caste census was unfeasible, “administratively difficult and cumbersome”.
SECC that was first conducted in 2011 and collected data of 130 crore Indians threw up 46 lakh different caste names whereas the total number of castes as per the last caste census of 1931 was 4,147 at the national level. Owing to the flaws in the data set, government has refused to make public even the raw caste data of the SECC-2011. The SECC-2011 collected data of all castes and not only OBCs.
There are separate OBC lists at the State-level and the Centre for reservation in government jobs and education.
Several political parties including the ruling BJP’s ally, the JD(U) in Bihar has been demanding an OBC census.
