Caste census: Panel preps up with 60 questions to be posed to 7 crore people

With about 1,800 castes listed and 60 survey questions, the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes will undertake the socio-economic survey of the nearly 7 crore population from September 22.

Preparatory work

As a precursor, households are being mapped, and a handbook has been published. Training of master trainers and approximately 1.6 lakh teachers, who will double as enumerators in the house-to-house survey, is scheduled to begin next week. The Energy Department is expected to provide a complete list of geo-mapped households by September 15.

This is the second socio-educational survey being conducted by the commission, following the first one in 2015, which the H. Kantharaj Commission conducted. The 2015 commission report was submitted by K. Jayaprakash Hegde, and that survey had 53 questions.  The number of castes/ sub-castes in the 2015 survey was 1,351 which went up to 1,821 after decoding.

“We discussed having around 70 questions in the beginning, which has been brought down to about 60. The handbook has been printed for use in training teachers and master trainers. Training of master trainers will commence from September 8 and that of the teachers on September 12,” Commission sources said. The objections received from the caste groups are being scrutinised by the members, and a decision will be taken soon.

Numbers to go up

While the commission published a list of 1,400 castes/sub-castes a fortnight ago and sought objections from the public, it is learnt that the commission has received several requests to include the names/synonyms of castes/sub-castes.

The commission had deliberately dropped the names of those castes that had less than 10 households from the published list of 1,400 castes, and a request had come to include them.

“We are considering their requests. We expect the caste list to exceed just over 1,800 in the State at the start of the survey. We will also include the list of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the final list.”

Incidentally, a comprehensive survey of scheduled caste households has just been concluded by the one-man commission headed by retired Judge H.N. Nagamohan Das, which submitted recommendations on internal reservation for scheduled caste communities.

Within deadline?

There have been some concerns expressed over the lack of time for preparation for the survey and also about the completion of the door-to-door survey of 2 crore households in a fortnight.

However, commission sources said, “Energy Department has already completed over 35% of the household list, and it has promised to provide the complete list of households by September 15. We are using advanced technologies to conduct the survey and monitor its functioning. If a household is left out of the survey, it can be identified using geo-tagging. We will complete the survey on schedule.”