Telangana faces shutdown as government conducts massive survey

A massive, door-to-door Intensive Household Survey (IHS) is being carried out in the newly formed state of Telangana by the state government today.

The state government has also announced a holiday today which has led to a shutdown in the state as public transport is expected to remain off the roads and schools, businesses etc are also going to remain closed today.

Chandrashekhar, a local resident, hailed the government's intensive exercise by saying, "This survey is good for poor people who have to get benefits. There is nothing to fear from it. It's only for information and a good decision. If government does it one or two times then it's good as sometimes all people are not available."

But another resident, rued, "Because of this 'bandh' people are facing problems. People are not able to move out of their homes. They cannot purchase anything."

Kishan Joshi, another resident of Hyderabad also added, "KCR has announced this 'bandh' but we are facing some problems. He said that everyone should stay at home. But I am in temple, how can I show any details of cards. What you are doing is good but petrol pump and everything should be opened."

The unprecedented door-to-door survey is expected to be completed by 5 pm today.

Earlier, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, in a press conference, while appealing to the people to participate in the exercise had also defended the survey, stating that it was only aimed at providing government benefits to genuine people.

Saying that this survey was necessary because there were no correct statistics for the newly formed Telangana government to use, Rao said, "This is social data that will be made available to society, it is not wrong in any way."

"We have provided a provision, whereby a person can choose to give his or her bank account details. These details shall immediately be computerized. This way, if any payment needs to be made to these people, for example, that of pension, it will get transferred directly into their account," he had added.

Rao also stated that one of the reasons why the data was being collected was due to the scams that plague the state. "There have been a huge number of scams, which is why we want to collect this data," he had said.