Amit Shah announces digitisation of census

Amingaon (Assam) [India], May 9 : Highlighting the role of census in policymaking of the country, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday announced that the next census will be an e-census that will be more scientific and 100 per cent perfect.

The Union Home Minister inaugurated the newly-constructed census office in Assam's Amingaon. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma was also present during the event.
He said the construction of the Census Bhawan in Assam will help in the census of the entire Northeast and in the quality assessment of vital data.

Speaking at the occasion, Shah said, "The census has an important role in policymaking. The Ministry of Home Affairs has decided that the census will be made scientific, accurate and multidimensional through modern technology and arrangements will be made for the analysis of its data."
He said this will be a perfect census, on the basis of which a roadmap for development over the next 25 years will be drawn.
"Decisions that are taken on the basis of empirical data are targeted for results, therefore to create empirically proven data, we have decided that the next census that was stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be an e-Census, a 100 per cent perfect census," Shah said.
He said a census can only point out where there is lesser development, what is the status of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, and the type of life people have in villages, towns and cities.
"We are going to prepare a new software and provision has been made to add the birth-death register in the software, in the coming days we are going to use it in multi-faceted ways too. As soon as a child is born, the information along with the birth date of the child will go into the back information of the Census Register, after attaining the age of 18, this person will be registered as a voter in the voter list from the office of the Census Registrar, " said the Union Home Minister.
In the Civil Registration System (CRS), the government has set a target of 100 per cent registration by 2024, every birth and death will be registered by 2024 and the census will be updated automatically, he informed.

Earlier on Monday, Shah, inaugurated newly constructed Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) buildings through a virtual live stream at the Registrar General of India Building, Amingaon, Guwahati.
During his visit, he also visited RTC Salonibari and 37th Bn Mangaldoi and took stock of the security preparedness. He also briefed about the security-related challenges and problems being faced by jawans in course of their duty. He further reviewed the status on matters related to corruption, prevention of narcotics smuggling and welfare of jawans.