Govt okays inclusion of caste data in census

Under pressure from various political parties, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government today decided to add caste in the ongoing census process.

The Union cabinet today approved the recommendations of a Group of Ministers (GoM) that ‘Caste’ of all people as returned by them would be incorporated.

It also decided the caste enumeration would be conducted as a separate exercise from June next year and completed in a phased manner by September after the Population Enumeration phase (to be conducted in February-March) of the Census 2011 is over.

“A suitable legal regime for collection of data on castes would be formulated in consultation with the law ministry,” a cabinet press release said.

While the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner would conduct the field operations of the caste enumeration, the central government would constitute an expert group to classify the caste/tribe returns after the enumeration is completed.

After collecting the data, the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India would hand over the details of the castes/tribes returned in the enumeration to the proposed Expert Group.

This is the first time after independece that the Centre will incorporate a detailed caste-based census. The last census when caste-wise data was published was carried out in 1931.

Initially, the government had no plan for a caste-based census. But, various parties, cutting across political lines, pressed it for incorporating caste data, besides Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the census.

“The home ministry submitted a fresh note on this subject in May. The Union Cabinet discussed the matter in its meeting held in May and decided that, “the matter may, in the first instance, be considered by a Group of Ministers”, said the release.

A Group of Ministers (GoM), constituted under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, had deliberated on the matter in three meetings and given its recommendations to the Union Cabinet.