The delay in the decennial Census 

(MainsGS2:Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.)

Context:

• The Additional Registrar General of India communicated to States on January 2 that the date of freezing of administrative boundaries has been extended till June 30. 
• The Census can only begin three months after the boundaries have been frozen, and the completion of the Census in its two phases takes at least 11 months. 

Process of Census:

• India's first proper or synchronous Census, one which begins on the same day or year across regions of the country, was carried out in 1881 by the colonial administration and has since happened every 10 years, except the one that was supposed to be carried out in 2021.
• The decennial census is carried out by lakhs of enumerators empanelled and trained by the government in two phases. 
• The first phase is the housing Census, where data on housing conditions, household amenities and assets possessed by households are collected.
• And the second phase is where data on population, education, religion, economic activity, Scheduled Castes and Tribes, language, literacy, migration, and fertility are collected.
• The freezing of boundary limits of administrative units such as districts, sub-districts, tehsils, and police stations, happens between two consecutive censuses as State administrations often create new districts or merge, or reorganise the existing units.

Cornerstone of good governance:

• The Census is still conducted under the Census Act of 1948, which predates the Constitution and The Act does not bind the government to conduct the Census on a particular date or to release its data in a notified period. 
• The Census data is crucial for various administrative functions, welfare schemes, and other surveys as the delay is not good and has ramifications.
• When evidence-based policymaking becomes the cornerstone of good governance, it is difficult to overstate the importance of reliable and timely public data.

Huge importance:

• Census data are critical for other sample surveys conducted in the country as they use the Census data as a ‘frame’ or list from which a representative sample of the population is selected for surveys. 
• For example, the latest edition of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) released last year, it was the 2011 data that served as the sampling frame.
• The Finance Commission allocates funds to States on the basis of Census figures and any delay could put them at a disadvantage.
• The Constitution talks about the use of Census data for delimitation of constituencies and for determining the quantum of reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
• It provides significant changes in the demography and the need for amenities from government health to educational facilities and is crucial to determine the population of migrants and migration patterns.

Conclusion:

• The start of the pandemic saw a sea of migrants on the country’s roads, and the only data available with the government was from 2011, which could not answer queries on the numbers, causes and patterns of migration.