Every Indian legally bound to reply to census queries: Lok Sabha told

New Delhi: Every Indian is legally bound to answer census questions and all requisite steps are being taken to carry out the census and the National Population Register exercise smoothly, Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said the state governments appoint census officers to take or aid in or supervise the census exercise under the provisions of the Census Act 1948.

"Every person is legally bound to answer the census questions to the best of his or her knowable or belief.

"All requisite measures are taken with the support of the state governments to conduct the census and the National Population Register (NPR) exercise smoothly," he said in a written reply to a question.

The housing listing phase of the census and the exercise to update the NPR were scheduled to be carried out across the country from April 1 to September 30, 2020 but postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

According to the earlier schedule, the reference date of the census was March 1, 2021 and October 1, 2020 in the snow-bound Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The census operation continues to be on hold and the government has not yet announced the new schedule.

In another turn of event, a Parliamentary panel flagged a 73.53 per cent shortfall in utilisation of budgeted allocation for capacity development of Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation for the current fiscal. It has also highlighted long time-lag in release of periodic labour force survey (PLFS) report and delay in unveiling the 7th Economic Census.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance in its 44th report on Demand of Grand for 2022-23 tabled in Parliament on Tuesday noted that under the capacity development head there has been a shortfall in fund utilisation by Rs 440 crore in 2021-22 against the budget allocation of Rs 598.36 crore (73.53per cent shortfall).

The panel is of the view that 73.53 per cent shortfall in fund utilisation cannot be justified by COVID-19 pandemic alone.

It stated that non-achievement of projected milestone by vendors engaged in concerned projects cannot justify the huge variation between budget outlay and actual expenditure.

It believed that proper budgetary yardsticks has not been applied while formulating the budget proposal and capacity development head.

It urged the ministry to ensure that projects under capacity development are monitored closely and also the realistic yardsticks are applied when budgetary projection are made.

The panel also urged the ministry to narrow down the time lag PLFS report by scaling up the efforts and making use of advanced information technology.

It noted that the 7th Economic Census has taken more than three years to complete and this will make data on some items/samples irrelevant and outdated for stakeholders to be used as parameters.

"The Committee, therefore, expect the Ministry to release the economic census with any further delay lest the data becomes infructuous," it stated.

It also suggested the plug administrative delay gap for effective implementation of the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme.