Census: Bengaluru all set to get a national data centre

The centre is expected to play a key role as ield enumerators will, for the first time, use mobile applications to feed census data

In the run up to India’s decadal headcount, a full-fledged national data centre – comprising close to 80 engineers and technical staff – is coming up in Bengaluru’s Koramangala.

The centre, one of the three such facilities in the country, is expected to play a key role as over 1.5 lakh field enumerators will be, for the first time, using mobile applications to feed census data, moving away from the traditional practice of collecting details using pen and paper.

“We have so far completed two rounds of testing to ensure the new technology is foolproof. In districts where the enumerators were sent to gather data on a trial basis, over 99% of them were comfortable using mobile app to fill in details,” Vijay Kumar S B, director of census operations in Karnataka told DH. “We did find some enumerators preferring the old system but their percentage is miniscule.”

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Previously, the mammoth exercise of data collection – which is undertaken in two phases (house listing and population survey) – involved enumerators going to houses with bundles of forms. These papers were then dispatched from nook and corners of the state to Bengaluru where they were scanned to convert the data into a certain format. The laborious task used to go on for three to five years before the final census report is out.

The digital intervention, Vijay Kumar said, would cut down the time of feeding the data in a certain format and analyzing them. “We have developed a mobile application for the enumerators who will be out in the field to collect data. The mobile phone does not need an active internet connection to feed the data,” he said. “The data fed by the enumerators syncs with the data center almost immediately.”

The census is conducted in two phases. In the first round, school teachers who double up as enumerators, go house-to-house to record the amenities in each household. The headcount and profiling of individuals is taken up in the second round. Due to three successive Covid-19 waves, the Census exercise was postponed at least twice. Officials say the Census may be held only next year.

In Karnataka, the first round is preferred during the summer holidays in April and May due to favorable weather conditions. The second round, called population enumeration, takes place at the same time across the country next February.