Bihar government to kick start caste census from January 7. Check details

The Bihar government is all set to begin its highly-anticipated caste census project from January 7 and aims to complete it by May-end. According to reports, the census will be carried out in two phases – the first will go on till January 21.

Close to 35,000 government employees are being trained at district level to carry out the exercise. Meanwhile, district magistrates have been made the nodal officer for each district.

First Phase:

In the first phase, enumerators will be asked to provide house numbers for each house in the state and will identify the number of families. School teachers, Nagar Nigam and Block-level government employees will be the enumerators.

Each ward has been divided into two Enumerator Blocks. On average, every enumerator will mark 150 to 160 houses in their area comprising 600 to 700 families.

Second Phase:

The first few days will be spent mapping the area, following which enumerators will work on identifying the houses. In the second phase, people will be surveyed about details of family members, income caste and other aspects.

However, if any person’s caste is not mentioned in the government list, she/her will have to present a caste certificate, or present herself/himself before the Block Divisional Officers to clarify the caste. The data procured in the survey will be uploaded to a government app especially developed for this task.

Nitish Kumar’s ambitious project

The state Cabinet approved the census in June and Rs. 500 crores has been earmarked to carry out the task. The government will use funds from the state contingency fund for the purpose. While the earliest date to complete the census was February 2023, the date was later revised to May.