As news of the Patna High Court staying Bihar’s Caste-Based Survey (CBS) trickled down to field officers, districts are in confusion and uncertain about the way ahead. While some districts decided to stop as soon as they heard of the order on the news, others are awaiting official orders from the State government’s General Administration Department.
The Bihar Government was in the middle of conducting the second phase of its much-touted CBS, which had begun on April 15 and was to be completed by May 15. However, the Patna High Court on Thursday stayed the survey till at least July 3, and directed that the data collected so far be secured without it being made public.
Soon after the order, district officials found themselves in disarray, with many statisticians disappointed that they will have to stop their exercise. Most district officials who spoke to The Hindu said that the second phase of the CBS had already covered 60% to 70% of their district’s populations.
“We have completed almost 70% of respondents in our district. But now, we are just waiting for orders from the State government to decide the way ahead,” one officer in Khagaria district said. Another official in Gopalganj district said the same, adding that they were being rushed into a meeting with government officials over the way ahead.
While district officials said they are yet to receive formal directions from the government on the CBS, some officers said, “It would be a shame if we cannot publish the data after all that we did.”
“In our district, we have covered almost 80% of respondents through the offline form. Of this, 20% of the data had already been entered into the digital portal. But we stopped the moment we heard the order and are now expecting further instructions,” an officer in Vaishali district said.
After the first phase, the house counting exercise, the Bihar Government had begun the second phase, which was being conducted in both offline and online modes (through the Bijaga application). The form for the second phase was collecting information on the population of 214 castes in the State, along with a variety of socio-economic indicators, including educational qualification, nature/status of employment, vehicle ownership, land (agricultural and residential) ownership, computer and laptop usage, housing status, temporary migration status, and monthly income from all sources.
