Census 2027: Findings to spruce up economic data, urban-rural gauges

The upcoming population census will improve the representativeness of sample surveys conducted to track important economic metrics and the changing equations between urban and rural agglomerations in the country, thus aiding more informed policy making, experts reckoned.

 

Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India says that the recent surveys being conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO) have become less reliable as they have been drawing their samples from the previous census, which was conducted way back in 2011. “The new census data will help in improving the samples that are used for NSO surveys, thus increasing their representativeness of the things happening in the Indian economy, particularly on parameters like consumption, health and labour markets,”he noted.

 

TCA Anant, adjunct professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and a former chief statistician said the census will be helpful in determining the true extent of urbanisation as well as the gender mix of the population. 

 

“A lot of economic data is based on samples drawn from rural and urban stratums. Data on rural-urban division is quite fuzzy. From the time the last census was conducted, urbanisation has occurred at a rapid pace and we have been underestimating it since then… so the new data will help define urban-rural areas better,” he said.    

 

The next census’ findings will also help identify the extent of India’s ageing population and vulnerability levels. “We have no reliable estimates of the senior citizens in the country, which affects our measure of the penetration of pension products in the country,” pointed out said Mukesh Anand, assistant professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.

 

PC Mohanan, former acting chairman of the National Statistical Commission, said the Census 2027 data will be helpful to arrive at better estimates of employment indicators, particularly for the Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS) and the Reserve Bank of India’s KLEMS database.

 

Moreover, the universal survey’s data will also be used to update the National Population Register.

 

“However, one thing that will be a bit tricky will be the conduct of caste census, as the government is yet to come up with the methodology and the questionnaire,” Mohanan averred.  

 

In 2023, Shamika Ravi, member EAC-PM had said all major surveys in India that were conducted after 2011, and used the Census 2011 for the sampling frame, have significantly overestimated the proportion of the rural population.