Data Gaps: Why India should not further delay its Census

India's decennial census, which determines, down to the village level, the population, literacy and migration, among other aspects of India's population, has been delayed since the nationwide Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020. Before the pandemic hit, the government had planned to conduct Census 2021 (the previous was in 2011) in two phases: the first from April to September 2020 and the second in February 2021.

In April 2022, the government informed that Census 2021 and related field activities have been postponed "until further orders" due to the pandemic.

This delay is impacting government schemes and programs, and results in unreliable estimates from other surveys on consumption, health and employment, which depend on census data to determine policy and welfare measures. Consider this: As many as 100 million people are likely being excluded from the government's food subsidy program the Public Distribution System (PDS) as the population figures used to calculate the number of beneficiaries are from the 2011 census.

As economic and government activity, including elections, have re-started across India, and the government has lifted most pandemic-related restrictions, there is no reason for prolonging the launch of census-related work.

Pre-census work should start immediately

Typically it takes around 12 months to complete pre-census activities and census enumeration. The government conducts house-listing about a year before the actual census, as it is essential to ensure that no person is missed and that there is no double-counting. It takes nearly a year to prepare an abridged house-list for the entire country which the enumerator uses to locate an address. The main purpose of the house-listing is to prepare a list of all households that are to be surveyed before undertaking population enumeration, besides providing data on housing stock, amenities and the assets available with each of the households.

The population enumeration follows the house-listing after a year, with March 1 as the reference date. So, for Census 2011, the government conducted house-listing between April and September 2010, and the population enumeration in February 2011.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the nationwide lockdown on March 24, 2020, the census office was ready to start house-listing in several states. As many as 3.3 million enumerators were expected to be mobilized for data collection. The reference date for the 2021 Census was October 1, 2020 for Jammu and Kashmir and snow-bound areas of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, while for the rest of country it was March 1, 2021.

As economic and government activity, including elections, have re-started across India, and the government has lifted most pandemic-related restrictions, there is no reason for prolonging the launch of census-related work.

Conducting a census is challenging, takes time

Given the geographic and climatic variations across states, the earliest it would be possible to start enumeration would be in 2024 if house-listing can be done in 2023. One of the reasons is that house-listing is especially important for India, as, unlike the US, India does not have a robust address system. Another challenge is the constantly changing boundaries of districts and tehsils within a state, a practice that has to be stopped a year before census operations start.

Besides posing operational problems in conducting the field operations, the utility of the census data will be much reduced if changes in areas of administrative units are made either when the census enumeration processes are on or soon thereafter.

Further, nature might influence the census. For example, a revenue village in the Gangetic belt may have been impacted when a river changed its course, and took a new name, which could lead to a village in the old list being missed in the census enumeration.

Also, administrative staff: district, tehsil officials and enumerators, most of whom are teachers; who were occupied with pandemic and often on the field, would find it difficult to work on population enumeration immediately.

Without new census, old data used for welfare programs

Programs and policies for those from the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, food distribution, education, sample selection for surveys on consumption, housing, and labour, among many others, depend on census data.

For instance, in the absence of recent census data, food grains allocated to states under the Central quota are based on 2011 census figures. Not updating them using more recent figures may deprive many people in rapidly growing states like Uttar Pradesh.

There is a danger of serious confusion and even conflict, for instance around the coverage of food subsidies, the delimitation of constituencies [such as for election polling], and resource allocation.

The census could also be one way of understanding the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. For instance, the questionnaire could be modified by adding pandemic-related questions, such as for issues pertaining to migrant workers, who were negatively impacted by the lockdowns.

The census is also used to make various estimates including employment and consumer expenditure. Census data are central to all household-based surveys since it is the base which is used to select a representative sample for surveys. If the census data is too old, then the sample survey estimates are no longer reliable.

The 2011 Census served as the base (the list from which a survey sample is drawn) for the selection of primary sampling units in India's National Family Health Survey on household health and family welfare.

The consumer expenditure survey which determines the poverty level, last conducted in 2011-12, is expected to resume in July 2022. This also uses the census to create the base or list from which the population to be surveyed is selected. A selection of rural and urban areas based on new census data will provide better quality consumption expenditure data.

Similarly, the Sample Registration System, a national demographic survey, uses the census for enumeration blocks. Now, as the sample cannot be replaced, old census data will be extended until the census is released. In both cases the imperfect base would impact the results.

Because of the delay in the census, the Socio-Economic and Caste Census is also likely to be stalled, making it difficult to reduce exclusion in social security programs.

Delayed censuses around the world

Censuses have been conducted in spite of the pandemic in many countries but these have suffered from substantial undercounting, particularly for minority groups. For example, US Census bureau estimates that the Hispanic or Latino population had a statistically significant undercount rate of 4.99%.

Among the five most populous countries: China, India, US, Indonesia, and Pakistan, all countries except India will conduct a census by 2022 in spite of the fallout of the pandemic.