Get on with Census

Crucial demographic exercise cannot wait for next elections

India’s decadal Census is an exercise of substantial scope and complexity. It requires the listing of every dwelling in the country and then a detailed population enumeration. Yet, even so, this exercise has been carried out at the beginning of every decade for over a century — except the current one. The 2021 Census was postponed because of the additional burden placed upon the process by the pandemic and associated restrictions on movement and social-distancing requirements. Yet those restrictions have been almost entirely lifted for over a year now. And still, according to a recent report in this newspaper, very