Telangana begins caste survey with house listing exercise
State backward classes welfare minister Ponnam Prabhakar said the survey was aimed at removing inequalities and ensuring equal justice to all
Telangana on Wednesday launched a comprehensive household caste survey to provide socio-economic, educational, employment and political opportunities for the Other Backward Classes (OBC), Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and weaker sections, becoming the third province in the last two years to embark on the exercise.
State backward classes welfare minister Ponnam Prabhakar formally kicked off the survey at the Greater Hyderabad Municipal (GHMC) office in the presence of his cabinet colleague D Sridhar Babu and GHMC mayor Gadwal Vijayalakshmi. He handed over the survey kits to enumerators under the GHMC limits.
Prabhakar said the survey was aimed at removing inequalities and ensuring equal justice to all and it would help the government chalk out plans for the welfare and development of various sections of society.
Prabhakar said the government identified 87,092 enumeration blocks covering 11.7 million families in the state, including 19,328 enumeration blocks with 2.83 million families in the GHMC limits alone. Each block comprises 150-175 families, he said.
“We have selected, in all, 94,750 enumerators, including primary school teachers and other government employees. Each enumerator will cover 150 families. Another 9,478 people were chosen as supervisors to oversee the enumeration process. The government has imparted training to all these personnel involved in the survey,” he said.
In the first three days, the enumerators will go door-to-door and explain the survey and paste stickers about the exercise on the doors. The actual survey will begin from November 9 and conclude on December 8. The data will be uploaded into the systems every day and the consolidated data will be submitted to the government by December 9.
According to the ministers, the enumerators will have a 75-point questionnaire to collect the data during the survey, including 56 primary questions and 16 supplementary questions. The questionnaire, which runs into eight pages, is divided into two parts – personal data and the economic data.
“The entire data will be confidential. There is no need for the people to submit any photocopies of their documents including land holdings or passbooks or Aadhaar cards. The surveyors would not take any photographs as well during the exercise. However, it would be better if they show their Aadhaar cards or agriculture land passbooks to help them fill up the survey forms quickly,” the minister said.
Meanwhile, the Telangana high court on Tuesday directed the state government and the Backward Classes Commission not to insist on mentioning the caste or religion of any individuals compulsorily, if they refused to name their caste or religion during the survey.
While dealing with a petition filed by Kula Nirmulana Sangham (KNS), an organisation fighting for eradication of caste system, justice Surepalli Nanda asked the government to consider the survey of people who wish to identify themselves as persons with no caste and no religion.
Justice Nanda said Article 25 (1) of the Constitution allows a person to practice and propagate religion of their choice and it includes in itself the freedom to state that he does not belong to any religion or caste.
The judge, however, declined to direct the authorities at this last minute to create any separate column in the survey questionnaire.
The Bihar caste survey – the first in independent India to successfully enumerate all castes – last year found that OBCs comprise 63.13% of the state, SCs formed 19.65% and STs 1.68%. “Upper” castes were found to be 15.52% of the population.
Subsequently, the Bihar government hiked reservations to 75% in government jobs and education. Challenges to the survey are pending before the Supreme Court.
On January 19, the Andhra Pradesh government kickstarted an exercise aimed at creating a comprehensive database of people based on their castes.