Describe the census of India and its uses.

The Census of India

• Its essential characteristics — it must be sponsored by the government; cover a defined territory; be universal, including every person without omission or duplication; refer to a defined point of time; be individual, recording each person separately; be conducted at regular intervals; and be published
• The methods of enumeration, which is the standard sub-question:
• The DE facto method counts people where they are found on the census night, whether or not they usually live there
• The DE jure method counts people at their usual place of residence, whether or not they are present
• De facto is simpler, avoids omission and duplication, and is faster; but it misrepresents the population of places with many visitors or absentees, and is unsuitable for local planning
• De jure gives the resident population needed for planning, but requires a definition of "usual residence", risks both omission and duplication of migrants, and takes longer
• INDIA uses a modified DE facto approach — a houselisting operation followed by a population enumeration over about three weeks, with a revisional round on a reference date, so that births, deaths and movements during the enumeration period are reconciled
• The information collected — name, age, sex and marital status; relationship to head of household; religion, and scheduled caste or tribe status; literacy and educational level; economic activity and occupation; migration and place of birth; fertility particulars for women; disability; and housing, amenities and assets from the houselisting
• The uses of census data — it provides the denominator for virtually every rate calculated in the country, which is its single most important function for health
• Also — planning and allocation of resources; delimitation of constituencies and political representation; allocation of funds between states; a sampling frame for surveys; the study of migration and urbanisation; and population projections
• Its limitations must be given — it is decennial, so data become progressively out OF date, and by the ninth year the denominator used for every rate may be substantially wrong
• It is expensive and administratively enormous; it does not record cause of death or morbidity; age is subject to heaping on numbers ending in 0 and 5 in a population where exact age is not known; and certain groups — migrants, the homeless and slum dwellers — are systematically under-counted
• Because it is decennial, the census must be supplemented by the sample registration system for annual vital rates and by surveys such as NFHS for health data
• The census and the SRS should not be confused — the census is a complete count giving size and structure every ten years; the SRS is a sample giving rates every year
• The legal basis is the census act, 1948, which makes answering compulsory and guarantees confidentiality of individual records, so that information cannot be used against an individual and is published only in aggregate
• The health-relevant indicators derived from the census — population size and density; age and sex composition and the population pyramid; sex ratio and child sex ratio; literacy, particularly female literacy; dependency ratio; urban-rural distribution; and housing and sanitation amenities
• The census supplies the denominator for almost every rate calculated in the country
• A decennial count gives a stale denominator by the ninth year, which is its most practical limitation
• Census and SRS are different things; one is a complete count of structure, the other a sample giving annual rates
• De facto counts where people are found and de jure where they usually live, which suits different purposes
• India uses a modified de facto method, with a revisional round to reconcile events during the enumeration period
• Age heaping occurs on zero and five where exact age is not known, which distorts age-specific analysis
• Migrants and the homeless are under-counted, which understates precisely the most vulnerable populations
• The census records no cause of death and no morbidity, which is why it must be supplemented by other systems
• Individual records are confidential by law, and information cannot be used against the person who gave it
• It has run every decade since 1881 without interruption, which is a considerable administrative achievement
• Delimitation of constituencies depends on it, which is why the census is politically as well as administratively significant
• Houselisting gives amenities and assets, which are used directly as social and environmental health indicators
• It provides the sampling frame for surveys, so a delayed census degrades every survey that follows it