Home Ministry Launches New Initiatives For Upcoming Census Using Advanced Geospatial Technology, Approves Rs 8754.23 Crore

The Home Ministry’s 2023-24 report outlines pre-census mapping efforts, including updating maps and creating web-based interactive maps for the Census, writes ETV Bharat's Gautam Debroy.

New Delhi:"The Home Ministry on Saturday announced that several new initiatives have been launched to facilitate the upcoming Census using advanced geospatial technology. “The pre-census mapping activities that have been adopted include the preparation and updation of maps showing administrative units of the States and Union Territories, districts, sub-districts, villages, towns and wards within towns to ensure proper coverage of the entire geographical area of the country. Further, efforts are being made for the dissemination of Census results through web-based interactive maps. Preparatory work in this direction has already been initiated,” the Home Ministry said in its year-ender report for 2023-24.

It reiterated that Rs 8754.23 crore has been approved by the Central Government for the forthcoming Census. It said that existing desktop GIS software has been upgraded to the latest versions for completing the Census mapping activities in a quick and efficient manner and all mapping manpower is trained to use the latest software.

“Jurisdictional changes that occurred in the country after census 2011 till 31.12.2023 have been updated in the geo-referenced database and further updation is going on as the freezing date has been extended,” the ministry said.

The compilation of geospatial data on ward boundaries of urban local bodies has been undertaken. “Data for approximately 77,000 out of 84,500 wards have been created. This includes around 14,400 wards covering all urban local bodies in Uttar Pradesh, successfully digitised using a desktop web application,” the ministry said.

The ministry further said that the notifications pertaining to the period of conduct of house listing and housing census and the house listing questionnaire also were notified.

“However, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Census 2021 and other related field activities have been postponed until further orders,” it said.

Referring to the new initiatives that are being adopted for the next census to facilitate the quick release of census data, the ministry said that a collaborative work initiative has been taken up between the Ministry of Panchayati Raj and the Office of the Registrar General for creating unified, error-free and up-to-date Jurisdictional directory in the country through LGD portal which may uniformly be used by all the stakeholders.

“More than 6 lakh Maps (District/Subdistrict/Village level) prepared and being uploaded in the CMMS portal for Census functionaries and the same will be further updated and finalized as per jurisdictional changes till December 31, 2023,” the ministry said.

It said that from April 2023 to March 2024, around 167 officers and officials have imparted induction, promotional, in-service and specialized training for the census operations.