Researchers of Jharkhand and Bihar can now easily avail details of the last census data from February 1. Ranchi University (RU) became the first university in this region to unveil a ‘Workstation for Research on Micro-Data from Census’ on Thursday. The station is set in collaboration with Registrar General Office of India.
The data includes entire details like household amenities, assets, population of male and female as well as percentage of literate and illiterate in urban and rural India. According to Government sources, RU is the tenth Indian university to have such facilities. However, in eastern India, it is probably the third Institute.
Four Nodal Officers have been authorized for the workstation including RU Economics department Head Dr Ramesh Sharan, Anthropology department Head Dr K Roy along with Assistant Directors SK Gupta and Sant Ram from Directorate of Census. “The first workstation was established in India at Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2011. Researchers in the field of Social Sciences like Economics, Anthropology, Political Science, History, Sociology and Geography can utilise the compiled census data stored in the computers of the workstation,” Sharan said.
Meanwhile, RU officials said a letter from respective Guide of the Researcher is required to access the data. “After the verifying the letter from our Nodal Officers, researchers will be allowed to utilise the census data,” University’s Coordinator for College Development Council Dr PK Singh mentioned. The Directorate of Census is also working with RU is setting an Archive of the Census Data in the same workstation.
Notably, RU was the first to fulfill criteria for census workstation among the other universities of the State. A 14 square feet room with a server linked to computers is essential to fulfill the criteria. There are five computers and a server in the station at present. For the scholars pursuing research at RU, the workstation seems dream coming true.
“I and my colleagues often have to visit villages. There are around 32 tribes in Jharkhand. It is important to know the status of their lifestyle. We can now get instant information from the workstation,” said RU’s Anthropology Researcher Sunita Mishra. She is presently pursuing her research in ‘Role of Self Help Groups on Development of Rural Women’ under Professor J Roy.
Earlier, researchers had to approach census offices in the State and other States for obtaining the data. “local scholars had to visit various Government offices for compiling the data. This Workstation will be a convenient mode,” claimed university professors.