The Common Service Centres (CSCs), under the Ministry of Electronics and IT, are readying 15 lakh enumerators for the 7th Economic Census to be conducted this year. The same workforce can also be used for the population census, which can be held every two years instead of 10 years currently, said a senior official government official.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) and CSC e-Governance Services India was signed on Thursday.
Started in 1977, till date only six economic censuses have been done due to massive work involving in-depth survey and data compilation. The Census of India, which gives statistical information related to the entire population of the country, also faces these challenges of extensive survey and vast amounts of data.
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has roped in CSC e-Governance Services India Limited for conducting the economic census, which is conducted across households to match the populations census.
“We manage three lakh common service centres across the country. Under the agreement with MoSPI, we will train five enumerators through each CSC. This will create a force of 15 lakh enumerators. They will conduct household level survey using a mobile application which we have developed,” said CSC e-Governance Services India CEO Dinesh Tyagi. CSCs are involved in delivering government services to people in rural areas.
CSC e-Governance Services India expects to complete training of enumerators by mid-March and start the survey from April 1. The same organisation had earlier done projects like Aadhaar, Ayushman Bharat, and Ujjwala.