Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday revealed that the work on caste-based census will start soon as the General Administrative Department, which has been given the charge of conducting the exercise, will take at least a month to prepare the groundwork. The ‘Jaati Aadharit Ganana’ exercise got an official clearance from the Bihar cabinet on Thursday, a day after the key decision was taken in an all-party meet headed by CM Nitish Kumar. The state cabinet has approved Rs 500 crore from the Bihar Contingency Fund in order to conduct this exercise.
“Decisions have been made on caste-based census and the department is already preparing for it. That’ll take almost a month but will start the work soon. We’ll keep informing parties about it and take suggestions from them. This is in favour of all communities,” Kumar told reporters today, as per news agency ANI.
The socio-economic exercise, once implemented, will help the state government chart out beneficiaries from different castes based on their income, among many other parameters. Armed with data from the census, it will further assist them in designing different schemes targeting the poor and the underprivileged. The census will be conducted at district levels with the District Magistrate overseeing the exercise in their respective districts. The Bihar government has set an ambitious target of completing the extensive statewide program by February, 2023.
The DMs are also empowered to direct workers in several departments at the village, panchayat and district level to conduct the census. The exercise will take into account caste and sub-castes of all religions.
After the major decision was taken at an all-party meet, Tejashwi Yadav, Leader of Bihar Opposition from RJ(D), asked the Modi government, which has been hesitant to go ahead with a caste-based census at the Centre, to provide necessary financial support to the state in order to conduct the census.
While the Centre had argued in front of the Supreme Court last year that a nationwide caste-based survey is administratively not viable, Nitish Kumar has, time and again, asked ally BJP to conduct a caste-based survey in the country “at least once.”
After a 10-party meeting last year with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Kumar had told reporters, “PM Modi listened to our demand for a caste census and we hope he will consider it. He has not denied our demand so far. We have asked him to take a decision.”
“It is a crucial issue and we have been seeking this for long. It if works out, that nothing could be better than that. Moreover, it would be not just for Bihar, people in the whole country will benefit from this. It should be done at least once”, Kumar further added.
