Indian Economy, 5th edition (142 page)

The Budget proposes
VCES
(Voluntary Compliance Encouragement Scheme) where a defaulter may avail of the scheme on condition that he files a truthful declaration of Service Tax dues since 01.10.2007. It is a one-time scheme in which interest, penalty and other consequences will be waived.

The Budget proposes to mobilise Rs. 18,000 crore in which new proposals in indirect taxes will yield Rs. 4,700 crore and direct taxes of Rs. 13,300 crore. In a major step to rationalise taxation on goods and services, the Budget has earmarked Rs. 9,000 crore towards the first installment of the balance of CST compensation. The Minister said that overwhelming majority States have agreed that there is a need for Constitutional amendment to pass
GST
law. It will be drafted by the State Finance Ministers and the GST Council, the Minister added.

Introduction

The Indian Census is a credible source of statistical information on different characteristics of the citizens since 1872. This was conducted at different points of time in different parts of the country. It was in 1881 that a Census was taken for the entire country simultaneously. Since then, Census has been conducted every ten years, without a break. The Census provides a snapshot of the country’s population and housing at a given point of time. The Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs is the
nodal authority
for conducting decennial Census in the country. Census 2011 is the 15
th
National Census of the country since 1872 and the 7
th
after Independence.

The Indian Censuses have throughout evoked interest worldwide but have become of greater interest since 2001 when the country population crossed one billion marks. Taking count of the large size of the population, especially when it is continuing to grow made 2011 Census another challenge. Like in the past censuses, the census organisation undertook publicity by various means to create awareness amongst the public for participating in the Census.

Census provides detailed and authentic information on demography, economic activity, literacy and education, housing & household amenities, urbanisation, fertility and mortality, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, language, religion, migration, disability and many other socio-cultural and demographic data. This information helps the Central and State Governments in planning and formulation of various policies. Besides, the delimitation or reservation of constituencies—Parliamentary/Assembly/Panchayats and other local bodies—are also based on demographic data.

According to
Article 246
of the Constitution of India, population Census is a Union Subject. But, the State Governments provide administrative support in conducting the Census process.

The Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, headed by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, plans and implements Census. There are field offices, headed by Directors of Census Operations, in all the States and Union Territories (except Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Union Territory of Daman and Diu, which are attached to the office at Gujarat). Directors of Census Operations are responsible for the conduct of Census in their respective jurisdiction.

Census of India 2011

The
provisional figures
of Census 2011 were released by the Ministry of Home Affairs on 31
st
March, 2011. The
final data
were released in March 2011–still some data are to come. Census 2011 was conducted in two phases.

The first phase, called the
House
Listing
or Housing Census was conducted between April and September last year across the country, depending on the convenience of different States/UTs. The second phase,
Population Enumeration
, began simultaneously all over the country from February 9, 2011 and continued up to February 28, 2011.

New Features

This Census has incorporated some
new categories
for the first time for the purpose of acquiring comprehensive and better data. The new categories are as follows:

•
Gender
: New category “Other” introduced in addition to Male and Female.

•
Date of Birth
: a new question introduced along with
Age
.

•
Current Marital Status
: Separate codes Assigned for Separated and Divorced.

•
New filter
Question on SC/ST
Introduced— “Is this person SC/ST?”

•
Disability
: Household Schedule of Census 2011 attempts to collect information on eight types of disabilities as against five included in the Household Schedule of Census of India 2001. The information is being collected on disabilities namely, disability ‘In Seeing’, ‘In Hearing’, ‘In Speech’, ‘In Movement’, ‘Mental retardation’, ‘Mental Illness’, ‘Any Other’ and ‘Multiple Disability’.

•
Literacy Status
for “Other” sex added in addition to existing Male and Female.

•
New Codes under Status of
Attendance in Educational Institutions
introduced for Not Attending viz., (i) Attended before and (ii) Never attended.

•
Work
: Marginal workers have been classified into two categories viz., (i) worked for 3 months or more but less than 6 months (ii) worked for less than 3 months. The definition of ‘Main worker’ remains the same.

•
A separate code-5 has been included under
Non-economic
activity for renters.

•
Migration
: Provision to specify the present name of the Village/Town of the Birth Place as well as the Place of Last Residence introduced.

•
Name
of the Institutional Household is also being recorded.

Census 2011, for the
first time
, has taken a new initiative to
sensitise school students
about census operations. The Census Organization implemented
“Census in School’
programme across the country. This was specifically designed for the active participation of children in ensuring authenticity of census data of their families.The programme covered about 60 to 80 schools in each of the 640 districts in the country.

A
mascot
of an enumerator was also created for Census 2011 to make the process more people-friendly with the objective of helping people to relate with the Census process and elucidate the key role of enumerators in the process.

Caste-based Census

Following demands from several ruling coalition leaders and many opposition parties this was decided to include caste-based informations to be collected during the Census. Information on caste was last collected during British Raj in 1931. During the early census, people often exaggerated their caste status to garner social status and it is expected that people downgrade it now in the expectation of gaining government benefits.

There is only
one instance
of a caste-count in post-Independent India. It was conducted in Kerala in 1968 by the Communist government under E. M. S. Namboodiripad to assess the social and economic backwardness of various lower castes. The census was termed Socio-Economic Survey of 1968 and the results were published in the Gazetteer of Kerala, 1971.

Census Data

According to provisional results, India’s population grew to 1.21 billion. The absolute number of children in the 0–6 age group recorded decline from 163 million in the 2001 census to 158 million in 2011.

Number of Administrative Units in Census 2011

•
State/Union Territories: 35

•
Districts: 640

•
Sub-districts: 5,924

•
Towns: 7,938

•
Villages: 6.41 Lakh

The cost of Census 2011 has been estimated at ‘22,000 million, which works out to a per person cost of ‘18.19. A total of 2.7 million functionaries worked in the process with the census schedules in 16 languages- a total of 340 million schedules were printed.

National Population Register (NPR)

A milestone of Census 2011 is the creation of National Population Register (NPR). The National Population Register (NPR) will build up a comprehensive identity database of usual residents of the country. It would have the
biometric
data
and
UID Number
of every person (15 years and above). National Identity Cards will be given in a phased manner to all usual residents by the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India. The NPR is being introduced for the
first time
in the country.

National Population Policy 2000

The National Population Policy, 2000 (NPP 2000) affirms the commitment of the Government towards voluntary and informed choice and consent of citizens while availing of reproductive health care services, and continuation of the target free approach in administering family planning services. The NPP 2000 provides a policy framework for advancing goals and prioritizing strategies during the next decade, to meet the reproductive and child health needs of the people of India, and to achieve net replacement levels (TFR) by 2010. It is based upon the need to simultaneously address issues of child survival, maternal health, and contraception, while increasing outreach and coverage of a comprehensive package of reproductive and child health services by government, industry and the voluntary non-government sector, working in partnership.

The
immediate objective
of the NPP 2000 is to address the unmet needs for contraception, health care infrastructure, and health personnel, and to provide integrated service delivery forbasic reproductive and child health care. The
medium-term objective
is to bring the TFR (Total Fertility Rate) to replacement level (i.e. 2.1) by 2010, through vigorous implementation of inter-sectoral operational strategies. The
long-term objective
is to achieve a stable population by 2045, at a level consistent with the requirements of sustainable economic growth, social development, and environmental protection.

In pursuance of these objectives, the following
National Socio-Demographic Goals
were set by the Government of India to be achieved in each case by 2010 (
one year before the next Census
):

•
Address the unmet needs for basic reproduc-tive and child health services, supplies and infrastructure.

•
Make school education up to age 14 free and compulsory, and reduce drop outs at primary and secondary school levels to below 20 percent for both boys and girls.

•
Reduce infant mortality rate to below 30 per 1000 live births.

•
Reduce maternal mortality ratio to below 100 per 100,000 live births.

•
Achieve universal immunization of children against all vaccine preventable diseases.

•
Promote delayed marriage for girls, not earlier than age 18 and preferably after 20 years of age.

•
Achieve 80 percent institutional deliveries and 100 percent deliveries by trained persons.

•
Achieve universal access to information/counseling, and services for fertility regulation and contraception with a wide basket of choices.

•
Achieve 100 per cent registration of births, deaths, marriage and pregnancy.

•
Contain the spread of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), and promote greater integration between the management of reproductive tract infections (RTI) and sexually transmitted infections (STI) and the National AIDS Control Organisation.

•
Prevent and control communicable diseases.

•
Integrate Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM) in the provision of reproductive and child health services, and in reaching out to households.

•
Promote vigorously the small family norm to achieve replacement levels of TFR.

•
Bring about convergence in implementation of related social sector programs so that family welfare becomes a people centred programme.

Population growths
in India continue to be high due to so may
inter-related
and
independent
factors. The factors may be seen as follows:

•
The large size of the population in the reproductive age-group (estimated contribution 58 percent). An addition of 417.2 million between 1991 and
2016
is anticipated despite substantial reductions in family size in several states, including those which have already achieved replacement levels of TFR. This momentum of increase in population will continue for some more years because high TFRs in the past have resulted in a large proportion of the population being currently in their reproductive years. It is imperative that the the reproductive age group adopts without further delay or exception the
“small family norm”
, for the reason that about 45 percent of population increase is contributed by births above two children per family.

•
Higher fertility
due to unmet need for contraception (estimated contribution 20 percent). India has 168 million eligible couples, of which just 44 percent are currently effectively protected. Urgent steps are currently required to make contraception more widely available, accessible, and affordable. Around 74 percent of the population lives in rural areas, in about 5.5 lakh villages, many with poor communications and transport. Reproductive health and basic health infrastructure and services often do not reach the villages, and, accordingly, vast numbers of people cannot avail of these services.

•
High wanted fertility due to the
high infant mortality rate
(IMR) (estimated contribution about 20 percent). Repeated child births are seen as an insurance against multiple infant (and child) deaths and accordingly, high infant mortality stymies all efforts at reducing TFR.

•
Over 50 percent of girls marry below the age of 18, the minimum legal age of marriage, resulting in a typical reproductive pattern of
“too early, too frequent, too many”
. Around 33 percent births occur at intervals of less than 24 months, which also results in high IMR.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CENSUS-2011

The major
highlights
of the Census 2011 are as under:

•
The
population
of the country is 1210.19 million of which 623.72 million (51.54%) are males and 586.46 million (48.46%) are females.