NPR-Census may be held next year due to Covid-19

The census, house listing and NPR process due to Covid-19 starting from April-September 2020 has been postponed for the present. An evaluation will be conducted on whether the first phase of this process can be implemented in all states and union territories after June. If this does not happen, the entire process will be rescheduled to April next year.

The 2021 census will be done in two phases. The first phase will cover house listing and housing along with the National Population Register (NPR) exercise from April to September. After this, the population count will be done between February 9 to February 28, 2021 with reference date as March 1, 2021.

However, the government is monitoring the status of the epidemic before rescheduling the process. Some experts, including two former Registrar Generals of India (RGI) and Census Commissioners - AR Nanda and JK Banthia who oversaw the 1991 and 2001 census respectively, say the revaluation may be inevitable.

An alternative is to consider the census from March 1, 2022 instead of March 1, 2021, and the house and other census should be started between April and September next year. Banthia said, "There is a reason behind this that India calculates population every 10 years in February. It takes into account agricultural weather, climatic factors, festivals, availability of enumerators and other factors. '

A government official said that in many countries census programs have been moved ahead of schedule or will be resumed in a phased manner in line with sector-specific health and safety norms. The government official said, "Ideally the census should be conducted in a normal year to ensure comparison of data." Banthia said that the cases of Covid-19 have been steadily increasing since March. In such a situation it is necessary to reschedule the census dates.