Eco census: Enumerators to visit 1.37 cr households

Over the next couple of months, more than 38,000 enumerators will visit 1.37 crore households in the state for the 7th edition of the Economic Census that was flagged off on Wednesday.

This time, the census will be done with the help of a mobile app.

"This will help us find out economic activities that are taking place, which in turn will help us in policy planning,” Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa said, after formally launching the census. On the occasion, Yediyurappa was the first to be covered by the enumerators who asked him if there were any economic activities taking place in his Dollar’s Colony residence.

"The census will cover 55 lakh urban and 82 lakh rural households," Additional Chief Secretary (Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms) V Manjula said. "Information related to economic activity in organised and unorganised sectors will be covered. There will be 8,720 urban enumerators and 30,000 rural enumerators,” she said.

The last Economic Census was conducted in 2014, which found 28,80,548 businesses and 71,45,885 workers. The first Economic Census was done way back in 1977.

According to A K Toprani, Additional Director-General at the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, the decadal population census covers number of families. "In the Economic Census, we contact households and establishments to find out entrepreneurial activities. Karnataka accounts for 5% of the total establishments in India," he said. "We hope to finish the census in four months," he added.

The mobile app, developed by the Centre, works both online and offline. When online, the data recorded is sent to a server, whereas offline data is stored locally and then transferred once connected to a network. The app will help enumerators record if any household has economic activities taking place. If yes, the household is marked as "residential plus commercial." If not, the household is marked as just residential.

"The field work for the census has already started in 22 states. Karnataka is now the 23rd state,” Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation director-general Vijay Kumar said.