Preface |
Houselisting Operation is an important precursor to the exercise of undertaking the decennial Population Census. One of the purposes of houselisting operations is to identify each building, structure and place to find out its usage - residential, non-residential, or any other purpose - so as to enable drawing up a frame for the population census, which follows this exercise. The cardinal principle is to cover the entire country, its plains, hills, deserts, forests, islands, rivers, everywhere on a systematic basis so as to avoid leaving any area or house at the time of population enumeration. During this exercise the entire country is divided into small and manageable census units, known as Enumeration Blocks, to be covered by an enumerator for collecting necessary information in the prescribed Houselist Schedule. This phase lasts for about a month, different for different State and Union territories depending upon a variety of factors. About twenty lakh (or 2 million) enumerators went round their Enumeration Blocks and collected information from each household on housing conditions, amenities and assets available. Houseless households were not covered during this phase.
Being the first Census of the third millennium and of the
twenty-first century and in view of the fact that there has been a
perceptible change in the life style of the people, it was considered
appropriate to collect information, which would help understand the living
condition in the vast stretch of our country. As India completed over half
a century of her free rule, it was time for stocktaking of the impact of
the various measures initiated in the field of socio-economic development.
Many regular and new items, on which information was collected at the
household level, provide valuable insight and help to identify the areas
and level of disparity in respect of availability of certain basic
amenities and assets to the people. Thus the hitherto undertaken
Houselisting Operations of the previous censuses was transformed into a
Housing Census. This now enables us to know not only where people live but
also how people live. The dataset in this volume allows us to measure the
level of quality of life and the pace of the change for the billion plus
population of our country at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
Several benchmark indicators of the quality of life have now been recorded
for the posterity and it is up to the government and our people to keep
improving the overall welfare and quality of life in the twenty first
century and measure the changes with the benchmark recorded now.
The number and the length of the tables generated on the Houselist
data have increased manifold as a result of collection of new data and
increase in the administrative boundaries since 1991. The tables provide
aggregates at various administrative levels like India, State, District,
Sub-district and for rural, urban and total areas. At City levels, the
tables are produced only in electronic format. Unlike previous Censuses,
all the Houselist tables are on a full count basis and not on a sample
basis. This is a path breaking trend setter and possibly several as a boon
for generating small area statistics.
One of the most striking features of the 2001 Census is the user
friendly mode of disseminating the results of this huge and painstaking
exercise. Mainly due to the popularity of computers and availability of
the computing skills on the one hand and the availability of Internet
technology on the other, the dissemination of 2001 Census provisional data
and its consequent use by various cross sections of data users within the
country and abroad, was instantaneous. Continuing this strategy the
results based on Houselisting Operation will be available in paper prints
as hard copies, data sheets, pamphlets etc., on compact disks, and on the
Internet at the Census of India website. The facility of generating
thematic maps based on Houselist data using Internet GIS technology at the
Census GIS India website will surely continue to help spatial analysis by
the data users and fascinate them because of the easy of use. The facility
introduced by the census organization for generating customized tables, as
far as practical and possible, at the users request, would help in
realizing the full potential in mining of the huge data stock concerning
more than one billion population. For those data users who need some
assistance in using census data or extracting information from published
or unpublished data on Houselisting Operation, consultancy services are
being made available.
There are altogether 60 tables generated on Houselist data for 2001
Census, out of which 12 tables would be made available only in the
electronic format. This publication provides Houselisting Tables relating
to the general population at India and State level. Similar tables in
respect of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes households will
be made available through a separate volume.
The present volume is based on the data collected at the
Houselisting Operation in the year 2000 throughout India. I take this
opportunity in thanking the Central Government, all the State Governments,
their State and district officials and the supervisors and enumerators who
made it possible to collect this mammoth dataset within prescribed time
period. I also thank all the Directors of Census Operations and their
dedicated team, who could make this operation possible due to their
untiring efforts and devotion not only to their duty but also to their
overall responsibility towards the society. Finally, I would like to place
on record our gratitude towards the people of India for their patience,
helpful attitude and active cooperation in participating in this
fascinating yet so daunting exercise. Over 9 million Houselist Schedules were scanned and initially processed at the fifteen Data Centres across the country. The data were then brought to the Headquarters at New Delhi for further processing, checking and generating tables. I thank all the members of the Data Processing Division for speedier processing of data. Special thanks are due to Mr Himakar, Additional Director, Mr BL Jain, Joint Director, Mr AK Srivastava, Deputy Director, Mr Bala Krishnan, Deputy Director, and other officials of the Data Processing Division of this office. I would also like to place on record my deep appreciation to all the officials and staff of the fifteen Data Centres who rose to the occasion and adopted the new data processing technology with considerable ease. The
Census Division of this office was responsible for planning and executing
the Houselist Operation throughout the country with the able assistance of
the Directorate of Census Operations in each State and Union territory.
The processed data were examined and checked by a Task Force constituted
for the purpose with the able assistance of the officers of the Census
Division in my office and the Census Directorates. This dedicated group
was responsible for scrutinizing the tables for consistency and quality
thus making it ready for publication. I thank Mr RG Mitra, Deputy
Registrar General, Mr SP Sharma, Consultant (Retired), Mr AK Singh, Deputy
Director, Mrs Suman Prashar, Deputy Director, Mr HK Kaushal, Assistant
Director and Mr PK Abrol, Assistant Director and other dedicated band of
officers at the ORGI for their uncompromising attitude and untiring
devotion to work. Even
great efforts are left unnoticed in the background unless suitably brought
out in public domain for public use with carefully crafted dissemination
strategy. The Data Dissemination Wing of this office took upon the task of
radically altering the mode in which Census data would be presented so as
to make them available to the ever growing fraternity of census data
users. The design of the tables, the reports, the CD-Rom or the web pages
and timely printing are the handiwork of the Data Dissemination Wing. I
thank Mr C Chakravorty, Joint Director and his team for their untiring
efforts in presenting census data in a user friendly format, ready for use
to the exponentially growing number of census data users in the country
and abroad. |
Jayant Kumar Banthia |