Government fixes map showing Arunachal Pradesh town as Chinese territory

New Delhi: The Registrar General of India on Saturday said that the "issue" related to a self-enumeration map showing Pasighat in the East Siang District of Arunachal Pradesh as a Chinese town 'Medog' has been resolved.

The issue was flagged by an X user, Mohonto Panging Pao (@MontyPanging), who posted about the lapse through a post to draw the attention of the authorities.

While attempting self-enumeration on the portal se.census.gov.in, maps depicted Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh as Medog.

"Medog is a town in China! CEO of Google @sundarpichai is Indian! Even official Govt portals are virtually ceding our territory! Needs urgent intervention!" Pao posted.

In the evening, the RGI issued a clarification saying, "An issue was mentioned during Self-Enumeration on se.census.gov.in regarding map location in Pasighat, East Siang District in Arunachal Pradesh today." "The issue was raised with Map services provider and it has been resolved," the census commissioner posted on X.

The 15-day window to self-enumerate opened on April 16 for Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, and Chandigarh, allowing citizens to answer the listed questions on a specially developed portal for the process.

The citizens will have to generate a special ID after filling in the necessary details and questions, which they will provide to enumerators who visit their home during the houselisting and housing census process for verification.

The field visits for houselisting process will begin immediately after the self-enumeration window is over and will continue for one month, as notified by each state.

The census, the eighth since Independence, is being conducted in two phases -- the first stage is known as houselisting and housing census, and the second stage is the population census.

The housing listing and housing census systematically lists all structures, houses, and households throughout the country to provide a sound framework for the conduct of the population enumeration.

In a first, the exercise will be completely digital, with enumerators using a mobile application created for the purpose to collect the information.

During the housing listing operations, the enumerators will physically visit each house and building and pose 33 questions to the citizens regarding basic facilities in their houses, information about the head of the household, such as the name and sex, and the ownership status.

The second phase of the census, which will do a headcount of the country's population, will start next year.