Caste census: It's cumbersome, Centre tells SC amid growing demand

Amid a growing deamnd from political parties for a caste census, the Centre has told the Supreme Court that caste Census of Backward Classes is “administratively difficult and cumbersome". The Centre added that excluding caste information from the purview of Census is a "conscious policy decision"

The Centre's stand assumes significance as recently, a 10-party delegation from Bihar, which was led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding caste Census.

In an affidavit filed in the apex court, the government has said that caste enumeration in Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 was “fraught” with mistakes and inaccuracies.

The affidavit was filed in the top court in response to a plea by Maharashtra. The state has sought a direction to the Centre to disclose the 2011 census raw caste data of Other Backward Classes which is not made available to the state on “repeated demand”.

The affidavit, filed by the secretary of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, said the Centre has already issued a notification in January last year prescribing the series of information to be collected during Census 2021 and it covers many areas including the information relating to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes but does not refer to any other category of caste.

The government said that the population Census is not the “ideal instrument” for the collection of details on castes and the operational difficulties are so many that there is a grave danger that the basic integrity of the Census data may be compromised and the fundamental population count itself could get distorted