Caste-wise count from Tuesday

CHENNAI: The Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC), which has been on in rural areas of the State for the past one week, begins in Chennai from Tuesday. The census will go on for 40 days. This is the first caste-based census in Independent India, the last was held in 1931.The three-fold objectives of the SECC are: rank house-holds based on their socio-economic status, prepare a list of families living below the poverty line, to gather authentic information about the caste-wise population, and to gather information about the socio-economic condition and education status of various castes and sections of the population.The caste and religion of the person collected during this census will not be made public and will be used by the Registrar General of India for statistical purposes for socio-economic profiling of various castes in India. Information that will be collected from the individual and household includes: occupation, education, disability, religion, status, name of caste/tribe, employment, income and source of income, assets, housing, consumer durables and non-durables and land.Greater Chennai with 200 wards has a population of around 65 lakh in 14.91 lakh households. There will be 12,312 enumeration blocks (each block has around 125 households with a population of 650 to 700 persons). As many as 3,009 enumerators and 3,623 data entry operators will be on duty. The data entry operators will accompany enumerators to key in the information. Bharat Electronics Limited has supplied 3,929 tablet PCs, which is stored with the Abridged House List taken during the general census undertaken in 2011. The enumerators will also ensure whether the same family is living in the same address as recorded in 2011 census or if they have shifted.The enumerators have been instructed to record all information given by the public regarding their socio-economic status as well as their caste and are not to try and cross question them. There will be 497 supervisors who will monitor the census and will visit the house-holds where the enumerators feel that insufficient information is given. Every resident, including the homeless, will be enumerated. The collected database will be uploaded by the 128 Data Base Administrators especially appointed by BEL in the respective Charge Centres to the N.I.C. server. The data will be kept confidential. Initially, the draft list will be published and by the end of the 31st day, the final list will be published.