‘Half-baked’ data, shortage of time hit caste survey in Telangana; officials doubt authenticity

The ongoing comprehensive household caste survey in Telangana aimed for providing socio-economic, educational, employment and political opportunities to the Other Backward Classes (OBC), Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and other weaker sections of the state may as well turn out to be a half-baked study, people familiar with the matter said.

The actual survey, which began on November 9, is scheduled to be completed by November 18. After the completion of survey, the data being collected by 87,000-odd enumerators under the auspices of 8,788 supervisors, will be computerised at the district level.

The data from all 33 districts will be compiled and analysed to prepare a comprehensive report, which will be prepared and submitted to the government by December 9.

At a review meeting conducted by chief minister A Revanth Reddy on Friday evening, out of 11,614,349 houses marked for conducting the survey, as many as 5,124,542 houses were covered till November 15, which is 44.1% of the target.

According to a senior official in the state secretariat, though the chief minister wanted that the survey is completed within the stipulated time without any delay covering all the households, it might get delayed by another week due to the difficulties being faced by enumerators at the field level.

“We are racing against time in completing the survey and hoping that it would be completed by November 24,” the official said.

The enumerators have been provided with a 75-point questionnaire to collect the data during the survey, including 56 primary questions and 16 supplementary questions. The questionnaire, which runs into eight pages, is divided into two parts – personal data and the economic data.

The part-1 has questions regarding the persons’ caste, sub-caste, religion, age, gender, mother tongue, mobile numbers, educational qualifications, information regarding disability, profession, including job or agriculture or self-employment, traditional profession, annual income, bank details; details of personal property, including agriculture land and type of land and irrigation facilities, whether he/she had availed of reservations in the past and the welfare schemes which they had availed in the last three years, political background and political posts they had held, if any.

The part-II has the questions pertaining to the economic status of people, including their outstanding loans with banks, possession of any personal property – movable and immovable, details of cattle they have, ration card details and whether they have electricity supply to their house, etc.

It is this lengthy questionnaire that has posed problems for the enumerators while conducting the survey, as most of the people, especially in the rural areas, are refusing to part with the information, despite the assurance given by state BC welfare minister Ponnam Prabhakar that the entire information will be kept confidential.

“In the first two or three days, it was very difficult for us to collect the data as we had to struggle a lot in getting answers to each and every question from the people. It used to take 25-30 minutes to fill up one questionnaire,” said V Paramesh, one of the enumerators of Adibatla municipality of Ranga Reddy district.

Later, the government made it clear that if the people refuse to answer any query, let the enumerators not force them. “This made things easy for us; and since then, the survey picked up pace and we are able to complete the survey of each household within 15 minutes,” Paramesh said.

After getting the clarification from the government, the enumerators have stopped insisting on any details. “We are filling up the forms with whatever information the people are giving. We are not sure whether it can be called a comprehensive survey or half-baked survey,” a supervisor, who preferred anonymity, said.

According to a government school headmaster in Mahabubnagar district, who refused to be quoted, people are bluntly refusing to give information with regard to their personal properties, like whether they have their own houses or the extent of land.

“While the marking of houses during the listing of households, we have taken one house as one unit, irrespective of the number of families residing in the house. This has become a big issue during the survey, as the families within the same house believed that they would be deprived of the benefits of welfare schemes,” he said.

Another enumerator from Dhanwada village in Mahabubnagar district said the people were not willing to provide the actual number of cattle they possess and also whether they owned the house.

“They were apparently apprehensive that they might lose the white ration cards (meant for BPL families) that would fetch them subsidised ration,” he said, adding that enumerators had tough time in telling the people that the data was not meant for either providing welfare scheme benefits or deleting their names from the list of beneficiaries.

A school teacher from Jadcherla said the people were directly asking the enumerators why the government needed information about their income, bank details and land details. “However, there has been no resistance from them when we ask for their caste details,” he said.

BC welfare minister Prabhakar told reporters on Wednesday that divulging information is not mandatory but voluntary. He said the census is meant to ascertain the caste-wise population. “If people do not want give information about their income or property details, there is no compulsion,” he said.

A retired headmaster from Kongara Kalan village of Ranga Reddy district L Ravinder said he had given whatever information the enumerator wanted. “In any case, the government said this data will not be used for providing any benefits to any section of people. So, I don’t understand why they have asked so many questions,” he said.

He, however, said if the purpose of the government is to ascertain the data of the castes, it would be solved as almost all the people covered in the survey were disclosing their caste and religion. “But it will not help a person to get caste certificate based on this data. He has to follow the regular process of applying for the certificate and get it from the revenue authorities,” Ravinder added.