Second phase of Census 2011 starts

New Delhi, Feb 9 (PTI) The second phase of Census 2011began today with enumerators seeking information about thefirst citizen of the country, President Pratibha Patil.

The decadal exercise, which will cover the entirecountry, began by collecting information on a "number ofcharacteristics about the President''s personal household" byenumerator Rita, a Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesperson said.

The exercise took place in the presence of HomeMinister P Chidambaram, Minister of state for Home AffairsGurudas Kamat, Census Commissioner of India, Dr CChandramouli, along with Director of Census Operation, DelhiVarsha Joshi.

Speaking after her enumeration, the President askedeveryone to wholeheartedly take part in the Census operation,which is gigantic in scale and to take it as a national duty.

A team of Census officials led by Registrar-Generaland Census Commissioner C Chandramouli also enumeratedVice-President Hamid Ansari as part of the country-wideexercise.

"It is the second largest census in the world and Iwish the Registrar-General and his team a grand success," hesaid.

Ansari said this Census will determine thesocio-economic health of the country in next decade.The first phase called House listing and HousingCensus, was conducted between April to September last year.

The second phase, called the Population Enumerationphase, starting today is being conducted simultaneously allover the country till February 28 and the entire exercisewould be completed by March 5.

All 640 districts, 5,767 tehsils, 7,742 towns and morethan six lakh villages of the country will be covered in theexercise. This is 15th Census of the country.