Census and Caste Enumeration
Context: The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) has approved caste enumeration in the forthcoming population census, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said.
Important Pointers:
Census in India
➤ India’s first synchronous census: 1881, conducted under W.C. Plowden. ➤ Legal basis: Census of India Act, 1948. ➤ Conducting authority: Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, under the Ministry of Home Affairs. ➤ Census is conducted every 10 years (decennial), but this is a convention, not a legal/constitutional mandate. ➤ Latest completed census: 2011; 2021 Census delayed. ➤ Census is a Union Subject under List I, Entry 69 of the Seventh Schedule. ➤ The proposed next census will be digital-first.
Caste Enumeration in Census
➤ Last full caste enumeration: 1931 Census. ➤ 1941 Census collected caste data but it was not published due to World War II. ➤ Since 1951, the census has included only SC and ST data, not OBC data. ➤ OBC population estimates remain unclear due to the absence of official data. ➤ Mandal Commission (1979) estimated OBCs to be 52% of the population. ➤ 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) included caste data, but most of it remains unpublished. Caste data from SECC is used for welfare targeting, not demographic accuracy. ➤ 2011 SECC was conducted by the Ministry of Rural Development, separate from the regular census.