As many as 3.76 lakh enumerators, including Government employees and volunteers, visited the houses in Telangana on Monday as a prelude to Tuesday’s Integrated Household Survey and handed over a check list of documents with a form to the families asking them to keep them ready. They asked the family members to be available for verification tomorrow. The teams of enumerators were expected to cover all the 84 lakh households of the state. It is first time that such an exercise will be completed on a single day.
last obstacle in the path of the survey was also removed today with the Hyderabad High Court giving its green signals to the exercise. The court rejected a public interest litigation to stay the survey saying it was not possible to do so. The State Government submitted to the court that it has clearly stated the guidelines of the survey in its order. However, unlike the massive build up by the Government to gather as much information about every household as possible, the final tally of the copies of document had come down significantly.
Following criticism from various quarters about the intent behind the scheduled and apprehensions that the personal information will be misused later top harass the people, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao clarified that there was no need for the people to part with details such as bank account or post office account numbers or PAN card. Though the people were asked to keep the copies of other documents ready, the visiting teams were not aware that copies need to be collected.
The first of its kind survey was likely to generated comprehensive data such as the exact number of households in the State. It will also be first time that a State will get the exact caste and community wise data of the people, as families will be asked about their caste identity and religion. Similarly the surveyors will also cover educational qualification, professional status and details of movable and immovable properties, agriculture or other land holdings, houses and house sites.
“If people provide correct information, we will also be able to collect information about the population of cattle including pigs in the State,” said a revenue department official referring to the three page form. A cursory look at the form reveals that the survey was more focused on the rural population than the urban population. As for the city folks were concerned, they will be asked to provide details like electricity, water and gas connection and whether they possess, two wheelers, three wheelers or four wheelers.
Though the Government has often repeated that the survey will help them in weeding out the white ration cards in the hands of undeserving people, from the nature of the form it was not clear how the Government was going to achieve the goal.
Contrary to the apprehensions of families of Seemandhra origin that the survey was aimed at singling them out for harassment, the survey does not any question about the nativity of any person. “We have been asked only to provide the date of birth,” said lakshminarayana, a resident of Andhra dominated Ameerpet area in Hyderabad. Wild rumors were also spread in Muslim areas that the survey was in fact lead to their victimisation in future and will help rioters.