Census

CENSUS 2001
INTRODUCTION
The first census of the third millennium and twenty first century the Census of India, 200 1 was the 14th continuous and uninterrupted Indian census since 1872.
The Census Act, 1948, forms the basis for the conduct of population censuses in independent India. The Census of India, 200 1 was conducted in two distinct but interrelated phases. The first phase, the Houselisting Operation was conducted between Apri1- September, 2000 in different states and union territories as a prelude to the exercise of undertaking the decennial Population Census. The houselisting exercise provided the basis for uniform and unambiguous frame to undertake the Population Enumeration with the ultimate objective of .achieving as full a coverage as is humanly possible without any omission of an area or household. During this Houselisting Operation, data on housing conditions, amenities and assets available to the households were also collected.
The second phase of census i.e. Population Enumeration, was undertaken between, 2001. The Census moment was 00.00 hours of 1st March, 2001, the referral time at which the snapshot of the population of the country was taken. This was a February, 9-28th 2001 (both days inclusive) with a revisional round from 1st to 5th March departure from the earlier census tradition, as until the 1991 Census (except 1971), the sunrise of 1st March of the relevant Census• year was the census moment. The enumeration of houseless population was carried out on the night of February 28th, 2001.
In certain inaccessible and snow bound areas of the country, population enumeration was prepo9ned for administrative and technical convenience and carried out non-synchronously. Thus in Jammu & Kashmir and certain snow bound areas of Himachal Pradesh and Uttranchal the Population Enumeration was conducted during 11th – 30th September, 2000 with a revisional round form 1st to 5th October, 2000. In Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh, the Population Enumeration had to be deferred due to certain constraints, the enumeration period was extended form 1st October, 2000 in the six districts viz, Srinagar, Badgam, Anantnag, Baramulla, Kupware and Pulwama of Kashmir Valley and four blocks namely, Banihal, Ramso, Marwa and Wardwan of Dada district in Jammu Division. It was further extended in Srinagar town and Pulwama districts until 15th December. 2000 with reference date being 16th December, 2000.
Further, due to the devastating earthquake in Gujarat on 26th January, 2001 just two weeks prior to the commencement of the nation wide Population Enumeration, this schedule in the affected areas of Gujarat had to be postponed. These included the entire district of Kachchh, Morvi, Ma1iya-Miana and Wankaner talukas of Rajkot district and Jodiya taluka of Jamnagar district. The Population Enumeration in these areas was undertaken during 9th-28th February, 2002 with 1st March, 2002 as the reference date. Although enumeration in certain areas of the country have been undertaken at different points of time and with different reference dates, no adjustments have been made to the enumerated population so as to bring all of them to the common reference date of 1st March, 2001. This, if at all, will have a very minor, almost negligible bearing on the population totals for the country or state or even the districts in most cases.
This gigantic operation (considered by many to be single largest and complex peace time administrative exercise in the world) was made possible due to the door to door universal canvassing of the Household Schedule by about 2 million enumerators and supervisors covering 593 districts, 5463 sub-districts, 5161 towns and 638,588 villages. The comprehensive Household Schedule which replaced the individual slip had three parts and two sides A and B. Part I contained the Location Particulars; Part II related to the Individual Particulars and Part III contained questions for Household engaged in Cultivation/Plantation The part II of the Household Schedule had 39 columns and 23 questions all of which were universally canvassed and no sampling was resorted to during enumeration. To facilitate quick tabulation for bringing out Provisional Population Totals, provision for page totaling were made in the schedule itself for a few items namely population, males, females, population aged 0-6 years by sex, literates, illiterates and workers and their categories by sex. The Provisional Population Totals were put in the public domain on 26th March, 200 I within three weeks of the completion -of the enumeration. Provisional Population Totals, Paper-1 of 2001 and Supplement to Provisional Population Totals of 200 1 provided the basic statistics of the population, literates upto district level classified by sex. The Directorates of Census Operations also released provisional data at the district, sub-district and town levels for their respective States/Uts through the publication of Paper 1, 2 and 3 of Provisional Population Totals. Subsequently, the distribution of population by rural and urban areas and economic activity characteristics• of the population by rural and urban areas at district/sub-district/town level were also released in electronic format at the national level and print form at the state level.
In addition to the provisional population totals, the final results of the Houselisting Operation were released in April, 2003 which provided valuable information on the housing stock, amenities and assets available to the household. Houselisting data is available in the hard copy form in ‘Tables on Houses, Household Amenities and Assets by India and States’. Similar publications are also available for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes households separately. This data is also available in hard copy and electronic format for India and all the States/Union territories at district, sub-district and town level. The Houselisting data is immensely useful to the policy makers, planners and administrators to improve the quality of life for countrymen as well to the corporate sector for formulating marketing strategies in reaching the rural masses.
Concepts and Definitions
The concepts and definitions adopted at the Census of India, 2001 are as given below:
Persons enumerated
Generally speaking, persons who are present ,in the household during the entire period of enumeration or who are known to be usual residents of the household and have stayed there for part of the enumeration period or who are not present at the time of visit of the enumerator but are expected to return by 28th February, 2001 are eligible to be enumerated. For the purpose of enumeration the following persons are enumerated in a household:
(i) All those who normally reside and are present in that household during the entire period of enumeration, i.e. from 9th February to 28th February, 2001 (both days inclusive);
(ii) Those who are known to be normally residing and had actually stayed during a part of the enumeration period in the household (9th February to 28th February, 2001) but are not present at the time of the visit of enumerator.
(iii) Also those who are known to be normally residing in the household and are not present at the time of the visit but expected to return by 28th February, 2001; and
(iv) Visitors who are present in the household censused and expected to be away from the place(s) of their usual residence during the entire enumeration period. For the purpose of enumeration such visitors were treated as normal residents of the household where they were actually found during the enumeration period provided they were not been enumerated elsewhere.
In Census, every person irrespective of age, sex, caste, creed, region, origin or religion is counted only once, without omission or duplication provided she/he satisfied the criteria of enumeration listed above. Foreigners who are expected to stay within the geographical limits of this country throughout the enumeration period are to be counted wherever they are found, if not enumerated elsewhere. Those foreigners who are expected to stay in India for a part of enumeration period are not eligible for enumeration. It may also be important to state that the foreigners and their families who were having diplomatic status were not enumerated. But Indian nationals employed and staying with them were enumerated.
Rural-Urban Areas
In the Census of India 2001, the definition of urban area adopted is as follows: (a) All statutory places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board" or notified town area committee, etc. (b) A place satisfying the following three criteria simultaneously:
(i) a minimum population of 5,000;
(ii) at least 75 per cent of male working population engaged In nonagricultural pursuits; and
(iii) a density of population of at least 400 per sq. km. (1,000 per sq . mile).
For identification of places which would qualify to be classified as 'urban' all villages, which, as per the 1991 Census had a population of 4,000 and above, a population density of 400 persons per sq. km. and having at least 75 per cent of male working population engaged in non-agricultural activity were considered. To work out the proportion of male working population re(erred to above against b)(ii), the data relating to main workers were taken into account.
An Urban Agglomeration is a continuous urban spread constituting a town and its
adjoining urban outgrowths (OGs) or two or more physically contiguous towns together and any adjoining urban outgrowths of such towns. Examples of OGs are railway colonies, university campuses, port areas, etc., that may come up near a city or statutory town outside its statutory limits but within the revenue limits of a village or villages contiguous to the town or city. Each such individual area by itself may not satisfy the minimum population limit to qualify it to be treated as an independent urban unit but may deserve to be clubbed with the town as a continuous urban spread.
For the purpose of delineation of Urban Agglomerations during Census of India 2001, following criteria are taken as pre-requisites: (a) The core town or at least one of the constituent towns of an urban agglomeration should necessarily be a statutory town; and (b) The total population of all the constituents (i.e. towns and outgrowths) of an Urban Agglomeration should not be less than 20,000 (as per the 1991 Census). With these two basic criteria having been met, the following are the possible different situations in which Urban Agglomerations would be constituted: (i) a city or town with one or more contiguous outgrowths; (ii) two or more adjoining towns with their outgrowths; and (iii) a city and one or more adjoining towns with their outgrowths all of which form a continuous spread.
City
Towns with population of 1,00,000 and above are called cities
Household
A ‘household’ is usually a group of persons who normally live together and take their
meals from a common kitchen unless the exigencies of work prevent any of them from doing so. Persons in a household may be related or unrelated or a mix of both. However, if a group of unrelated persons live in a census house but do not take their meals from the common kitchen, then they are not constituent of a common household. Each such person was to be treated as a separate household. The important link in finding out whether it was a household or not was a common kitchen. There may be one member households, two member households or multi-member households. A household with at least one Scheduled Caste member is treated as Scheduled Caste Household. Similarly, a household having at least one Scheduled Tribe member is treated as a Scheduled Tribe household.
Institutional Household
A group of unrelated persons who live in an institution and take their meals from a
common kitchen is called' an Institutional Household. Examples of Institutional Households are boarding houses, messes, hostels, hotels, rescue homes, jails, ashrams, orphanages, etc. To make the definition more clearly perceptible to the enumerators at the Census 200 1, it was specifically mentioned that this category of households would cover only those households where a group of unrelated persons live in an institution and share a common kitchen.
Houseless Households
Households who do not live in buildings or census houses but live in the open on roadside, pavements, in hume pipes, under fly-overs and staircases, or in the open in places of worship, mandaps, railway platforms, etc. are treated as Houseless households.
Head of the Household
The head of household for census purposes is a person who is recognized as such by the household. She or he is generally the person who bears the chief responsibility for managing the affairs of the household and takes decision on behalf of the household. The head of household need not necessarily be the oldest male member or an earning member, but may be a female or a younger member of either sex. In case of an absentee de jure 'Head' who is not eligible to be enumerated in the household, the person on whom the responsibility of managing the affairs of household rests was to be regarded as the head irrespective whether the person is male or female.
Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes
Article 341 of the Constitution provides that the President may, with respect to any
State or Union territory, specify the castes, races or tribes or parts of or groups within castes, races or tribes which shall for the purposes of the Constitution be deemed to be Scheduled Castes in relation to that. State or Union territory. Similarly, Article 342 provides for specification of tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within tribes or tribal communities which are deemed to be for the purposes of the Constitution the Scheduled Tribes in relation to that State or Union territory. In pursuance of these provisions, the list of Scheduled Castes and / or Scheduled Tribes are notified for each State and Union territory and are valid only within the jurisdiction of that State or Union territory and not outside.
It is important to mention here that under the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, no person who professed a religion different from Hinduism was deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste in addition to every member of the Ramdasi, Kabirpanthi, Majhabi or Sikligar caste resident in Punjab or Patiala and East Punjab States Union were in relation to that State whether they professed the Hindu or the Sikh religion. Subsequently, in September, 1956, by an amendment, the Presidential Order of 1950 and in all subsequent Presidential' Orders relating to Scheduled Castes, the population professing the Hindu and the Sikh religions were placed on the same footing with regard to their inclusion as Scheduled Castes. Later on, as per the amendment made in the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1990, the Hindu, the Sikh and the Buddhist professing population were placed on the same footing with regard to the recognition of the Scheduled Castes.
For finalizing the list of Schedule Castes/Scheduled Tribes notified in each state/union territory, all the constitutional amendments that have taken place prior to the conduct of 200 I census were taken into account. Since there is no Scheduled Castes list for the state of Nagaland and the Union territories of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep; and no Scheduled Tribes list for the States of Delhi, Haryana and Punjab and the Union territories of Chandigarh and Pondicherry, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes population figures are furnished for only the relevant category in respect of these States and Union territories.
The instructions to the enumerators for recording the individual responses on religion and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled tribes were more or less the same as in the past censuses. Each enumerator was provided with a notified list of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in respect of his/her state/union territory. The religion for each individual was first of all detem1ined. Then it was ascertained from the respondent for each individual whether she or he belonged to a Scheduled caste or a Scheduled Tribe through Question No.8 & 9 of the Household Schedule. If in reply to either of this question, the answer was in the 'affirmative: the name of caste / tribe to which the individual belonged was ascertained. If the name of caste / tribe returned by the respondent appeared in the approved list for the state the enumerator was expected to treat the individual, as belonging to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe and record the appropriate entry.
Literates
A person aged 7 years and above who can both read and write with understanding in any language has been taken as literate. It is not necessary for a person to have received any formal education or passed any minimum educational standard for being treated as literate. People who were blind and could read in Braille are treated to be literates.
A person, who can neither read nor write or can only read but cannot write in any language, is 'treated as illiterate. All children of age 6 years or less, even if going to
school and have picked up reading and writing, are treated as illiterate.
Work
Work is defined as participation in any economically productive activity with or
without compensation, wages or profit. Such participation may be physical and/or
mental in nature. Work involves not only actual work but also includes effective
supervision and direction of work. It even includes part time help or unpaid work on farm, family enterprise or in any other economic activity. All persons engaged in 'work' as defined above are workers. Persons who are engaged in cultivation or milk production even solely for domestic consumption are also treated as workers.
Reference period for determining a person as worker and non-worker is one year
preceding the date of enumeration.
Main Workers
Those workers who had worked for the major part of the reference period (i.e. 6 months or more) are termed as Main Workers.
Marginal Workers
Those workers who had not worked for the major part of the reference period (i.e. less than 6 months) are termed as Marginal Workers.
Cultivator
For purposes of the census a person is classified as cultivator if he or she is engaged in cultivation of land owned or held from Government or held from private persons or institutions for payment in money, kind or share. Cultivation includes effective supervision or direction in cultivation. A person who has given out her/his land to another person or persons or institution(s) for cultivation for money, kind or share of crop and who does not even supervise or direct cultivation of land, is not treated as cultivator. Similarly, a person ,working on another person's land for wages in cash or kind or a combination of both (agricultural laborer) is not treated as cultivator.
Cultivation involves ploughing, sowing, harvesting and production of cereals and millet crops such as wheat, paddy, jowar, bajra, ragi, etc., and other crops such as sugarcane, tobacco, ground-nuts, tapioca, etc., and pulses, raw jute and kindred fibre crop, cotton, cinchona and other medicinal plants,' fruit growing, vegetable growing or keeping orchards or groves, etc. Cultivation does not include the following plantation crops - tea, coffee, rubber, coconut and betel-nuts (areca).
Agriculturl Labourers
A person who works on another person's land for wages in money or kind or share is regarded as an agricultural labourer. She or he has no risk in the cultivation, but merely works on another person's land for wages. An agricultural labourer has no right of lease or contract on land on which She/he works.
Household Industry Workers
Household Industry is defined as an industry' conducted by one or more members of the household at home or within the village in rural areas and only within the precincts of the house where the household lives in urban areas. The larger proportion of workers in the household industry consists of members of the household. The industry is not run on the scale of a registered factory which would qualify or has to be registered under the Indian Factories Act.
The main criterion of a Household industry even in urban areas is the participation of one or more members of a household. Even if the industry is not actually located at home in rural areas there is a greater possibility of the members of the household participating even if it is located anywhere within the village limits. In the urban areas, where organized industry takes greater prominence, the Household Industry is confined to the precincts of the house where the participants live. In urban areas, even if the members of the household run an industry by themselves but at a place away from the precincts of their home, it is not considered as a Household Industry. It should be located within the precincts of the house where the members live in the case of urban areas.
Househod Industry relates to production , processing, servicing, repairing or making and selling (but not merely selling) of goods. It does not include professions such as a Pleader, Doctor, Musician, Dancer, Waterman, Astrologer, Dhobi, Barber, etc., or merely trade or business, even if such professions, trade or services are run at home by members of the household. Some of the typical industries that can be conducted on a household industry basis are: Foodstuffs : such as production of floor, milking or dehusking of paddy, grinding of herbs, production of pickles, preservation of meat etc. Beverages: such as manufacture of country liquor, ice cream, soda water etc., Tobacco Products : such as bidi, cigars, Textile cotton, Jute, Wool or Silk, Manufacture of Wood
And Wood Products, Paper and Paper Products, Leather and Leather Products, Petroleum and Coal Products : such as making foot• wear from tom tyres and other rubber footwear, Chemical and Chemical Products :such as manufacture of toys, paints, colours, matches, fireworks, perfumes, ink etc., Service and Repairing of Transport Equipments : such as cycle, rickshaw, boat or animal driven carts etc.
Other Workers
All workers, i.e., those who have been engaged in some economic activity during the last one year, but are not cultivators or agricultural labourers or in Household Industry, are 'Other Workers(OW)'. The type of workers that come under this category of 'OW' include all government servants, municipal ,employees, teachers, factory workers, plantation workers, those engaged in trade, commerce, business, transport banking, mining, construction, political or social work, priests, entertainment artists, etc. In effect, all those workers other than cultivators or agricultural labourers or household industry workers, are 'Other Workers'.
Non Workers
A person who did not at all work during the reference period was treated as non-worker. The. non-workers broadly constitute Students who did not participate in any economic activity paid or unpaid, household duties who were attending to daily household chores like cooking, cleaning utensils, looking after children, fetching water etc, and are not even helping in the unpaid work in the family form or cultivation or milching, dependant such as infants or very elderly people not included in the category of worker, pensioners those who are drawing pension after retirement and are not engaged in any economic activity. Beggars, vagrants, prostitutes and persons having unidentified source of income and with unspecified sources of subsistence and not engaged in any economically productive work during the reference period. Others, this category includes all Non-workers who may not come under the above categories such as rentiers, persons living on remittances, agricultural or non-agricultural royalty, convicts in jails or inmates of penal, mental or charitable institutions doing no paid or unpaid work and persons who are seeking/available for work.
Location Code Structure adopted in Census 2001
The general pattern followed in coding of any geographical unit was a serpentine one, except for the wards in the towns, beginning from the North-west comer and completing at the farthest South-east corner within the defined higher level of the geographical hierarchy. In so far as the State/Ut is concerned Jammu & Kashmir has code number 01 (north-west comer) and code number 35 (south east corner) has been allotted to Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Generally the administrative unit below a district is a sub-district, for example Tehsil ,or Taluk. However, in certain states and union territories exceptions had to be made since the nomenclature for sub-districts is not uniform throughout the country. For example, in Orissa Police station is the sub-district, in West Bengal it is the Community Development Block and so on.
After the completion of Houselisting Operation, three new states namely, Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand were created in November, 2000 barely three months before the commencement of Population Enumeration. These states were carved out of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar respectively. This resulted in redoing the coding exercise in all the jurisdictional units of these six affected states and much time and effort initially put in had to be invested again to ensure that the processing of Houselisting records is not adversely affected among other things.
In Assam, Mizoram and Orissa there are a few sub-districts which cut across the district jurisdictions. In such situations these sub-districts only have been provided a separate series of code numbers viz. 0090, 0091 etc., whereas those sub-districts which do not violate the district boundaries have been given the normal code numbers i.e. 0001, 0002 etc. the sub-districts which cut across two districts are 1) Sidli Circle (Kokrajhar and Bongaigaon districts), 2) Dhakuakhana Circle (Lakhimpur and Dhemaji districts) and 3) Subansiri Circle (Lakhimpur and Dhemaji districts) in Assam, 4) Tlangnuam Rural Development Block (Kolasib and Aizawl districts), 5) Thingsulthliah Rural Development Block (Aizawl and Serchhip districts) and 6) East Lungdar Rural Development Block (Champhai and Serchhip districts) in Mizoram and -7) Ramagiri Police Station (Ganjam and Gajapati districts) in Orissa. One of the major initiatives taken in the Census 2001 was the allotment of Permanent Location Code Number (PLCN) to each and every village within the State and not within a sub-district as in the earlier censuses. PLCN was thus assigned as one continuous number from the first village in the first district to the last village in the last district. PLCN is an eight digit unique location code number with the first six digits representing the code number of the village and the last two digits are by default two zeros '00' as future provision. These zeros are reserved as buffer to be used for coding any new village(s) that may come up between two existing villages in future. For example, if a new village comes up between two villages with PLCNs 01254600 'and 01254700, the new village will be allotted PLCN 01254601 and so on.
The location code number for a town in every state is also an eight digit number starting with the digit 4 situated at the extreme left acting as the unique identifier for any town in the state. The next two digits depict the code number of the district in which the town falls followed by two digits representing the town serial number in the district. There are three zeros at the end as buffer mainly to meet the requirement of bringing the number of digits to eight to match the number of digits in the PLCN for the villages. Thus a town location code number 40305000 represents the town serial number 5 of the district number 03 in a State.
There are ten towns in the country that spread over more than one district.
These are 1) Devaprayag (Tehri Garhwal and Garhwal districts) in Uttranchal, 2) Delhi Municipal Corporation (all the nine districts) and 3) New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) (New Delhi, Central, Sourth West and South districts) in Delhi, 4) ,Imphal, Municipal Council (Imphal West and Imphal East districts), 5) Lilong, Nagar Panchayat, (Thoubal and Imphal East districts), 6) Nambol, Municipal Council (Bishmiplir and Imphal West districts) and 7) Samurou, Nagar Panchayat, (Thoubal and Imphal West districts) in Manipur, 8) Siliguri, Municipal Corporation (Darjiling and Jalpaiguri districts) in West Bengal, 9) Greater Mumbai, Municipal Corporation (Mumbai Suburban and Mumbai districts) in Maharashtra and 10) Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts) in Andhra Pradesh. Although, the parts of such towns falling in two different districts have been coded independently, the last five digits of these towns are the same since the same town serial numbers have allotted within the districts to these different town parts. However, the district code being an element of the eight-digited town code structure; the same town has two different eight digited codes. For example, Siliguri (M.Corp.) falling in two districts, namely, Darjiling (01) and Jalpaiguri (02) has codes 40109000 and 40209000 respectively.