The gargantuan exercise of Census 2011 will be kickstarted on Thursday to cover India’s 1.2 billion population in one single database. Along with the enormity, what makes the census more interesting is its inclusion of socio-economic indicators of the common people. For the first time ever, any census would step beyond the demographics and economic activity and would collect details, including ownership of mobile phones, computers, internet, and availability of treated or untreated drinking water facility. It will also provide figures on migration, literacy, language, religion, fertility, mortality and so on.

President Pratibha Patil, as the country?s first citizen, will fill up the first form and commemorate the launch of Census 2011.

The officials will then initiate the process of recording the status of the huge population across the country in the next one year. Spread across 35 states and Union Territories, the Census would cover 640 districts, 5,767 tehsils, 7,742 towns and more than 6,00,000 villages. The Rs 2,200-crore headcount, being described as the largest demographic exercise in history of mankind, will see 2.5 million people committed towards ensuring that every citizen gets enumerated.

However, the government made it clear that no information will be collected on castes as no caste-based census has ever been conducted in independent India.

India has so far held 14 Censuses uninterruptedly since 1872. Census 2011 will make a mark as it is being tagged with the creation of the National Population Register (NPR) ? a comprehensive identity database for the residents of the country. NPR (which is being prepared for the first time) will form the basis for allotment of a Unique Identification Number (UID) to all the citizens above 15 years of age. The Census operation would cost around Rs 2,209 core while the approved cost of the scheme for creation of NPR is Rs 3,539.24 crore.

The entire exercise will finally culminate into a UID for every citizen, along with the issuance of biometric cards that are complete with biometrics such as photographs and finger prints. This mammoth exercise will surely help the government to achieve its goals of strengthening the country’s security besides helping in formulation of its plans, particularly its outreach programmes. Besides the government, it will prove to be of great help for the industry and banking sector that are striving hard to achieve their CSR and financial inclusion targets.

Census 2011 will be conducted in two phases. The first phase, called the House Listing and Housing Census, will be conducted between April and July, depending on the convenience of different States/UTs.

This operation is to be conducted over a period of 45 days in each State/UT. Thus a state starting on the April 1 will finish on the May 15 and so on. The details required for creating the NPR will also be canvassed during this phase.

The second phase, called the Population Enumeration phase, will be conducted simultaneously all over the country from February 9 to 28, 2011.