Caste will be included in Indian census

New Delhi, Sep 9 (ANI): Union Cabinet on Thursday gave its approval to the inclusion of caste in census.

Briefing reporters after meeting, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said that house to house enumeration of castes will be done from June to September next year.

He said that there would be a biometric capture, head count and house to house enumeration of castes.

"Every point of view has been accommodated and a time table has been drawn up after the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee held consultations with all political parties," he added.

The caste enumeration would be conducted as a separate exercise from June 2011 and completed in a phased manner by September 2011 after the Population Enumeration phase (to be conducted in February-March 2011) of the Census 2011 is over.

A suitable legal regime for collection of data on Castes would be formulated in consultation with the Ministry of Law and Justice.

The Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner India would conduct the field operations of the caste enumeration.

The Government of India would constitute an expert group to classify the caste/tribe returns after the enumeration is completed.

The office of the registrar general and Census Commissioner India would hand over the details of the castes/tribes returned in the enumeration to the proposed expert group.

Caste-wise enumeration had been given up as a matter of policy after independence. The last Census when caste-wise data was collected, tabulated and published in detail was the 1931 Census.

In response to the demands for enumerating castes other than Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the Census 2011 raised inside Parliament as well as by various groups outside, the Ministry of Home Affairs submitted a note to the Union Cabinet in May 2010 pertaining to this issue.

The Ministry of Home Affairs submitted a fresh note on this subject. The Cabinet discussed the matter in its meeting held in May 2010 and decided that, "the matter may, in the first instance, be considered by a Group of Ministers (GoM)". (ANI)