Bagalkot: The ongoing social and educational survey in the district is progressing slowly due to various issues, including network problems, app columns not opening properly, and the app crashing at the time of submission after entering the data.
Despite efforts from morning till evening, most surveyors are only able to collect data from two or three households per day. Continuous disruptions in the network or the app are hampering the smooth conduct of the survey.
A WhatsApp group has been created to report and resolve any issues faced by the surveyors. However, the surveyors complain that even when problems are reported in the group, there is no response from the concerned authorities. The target is to complete the survey of 5,25,736 households in the district. However, in the first three days, only 7,263 households have been fully surveyed.
Surveyors in rural regions are struggling with poor network connectivity. In many cases, the app does not even open for long hours. Even when it does open, the network gets disconnected before all questions are answered, forcing the surveyors to restart the form from scratch.
Address confusion
It would be easier for school teachers, who are residents and serving as surveyors, to survey if they were given the names of the households to visit. Instead, the app provides just a number, which is said to be geo-tagged. Officials claim that tapping the number will show the house’s location.
Surveyors say that clicking on the number does not display the correct house address and instead points to random locations. The Electricity Department staff have placed stickers based on meter numbers, but since many surveyors are unaware of the meter numbers, they are struggling to locate the correct homes.
Religious category missing
Surveyors report that religious options such as ‘Veerashaiva Lingayat’ and ‘Lingayat’ are missing in the survey app.
While the app includes options like Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, and Christian, there is also a category labelled ‘Others’.
It was said that those identifying with other religions could be categorised there.
However, surveyors complain that when they select ‘Others’, the app does not display any further options.
As a result, surveyors who attempt to record households identifying as Veerashaiva Lingayat or Lingayat are forced to skip those houses and move on to the next, severely affecting the progress of the survey.