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First phase of Census 2021 postponed in India due to COVID-19
NEW DELHI, Sept 16, 2020 (BSS/XINHUA) – The Indian government said on Wednesday that the first phase of the Census 2021 has been postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
The government made the statement in parliament that is currently in session these days.
“The first phase of census operations and other related field activities have been postponed due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic,” India’s federal junior home minister Nityanand Rai told the upper house (locally called Rajya Sabha) of parliament.
The first phase was supposed to be held from April 1 to Sept. 30.
According to the minister, a multiple-layered security approach has been adopted for the security and safety of the census data.
“Data collection is to be done on registered devices of the enumerators appointed by the state governments,” the minister said. “Data is encrypted at the device, during the transmission and at servers/storage. The services of system integrators have been hired for developing the mobile Apps, management of census portal and related activities.”
Rai said the publicity campaigns form a part of the census operations and all the enumerators are to be registered on the portal before undertaking the enumeration work.
On Wednesday the number of COVID-19 cases in the country has reached 5,020,359, including 82,066 deaths. Globally India is the second worst-hit country due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Census in India is a decadal exercise to enumerate the country’s population. It is one of the largest administrative and statistical exercises in the world.
Officials say the exercise requires visiting every household across the country for the purpose of enumeration and involves services of 3 million employees.
BSS/XINHUA/SSS/1921 hrs