A one day socio economic survey in Hyderabad

The following news report and similar articles that appeared maligned or raised
concern about a simple exercise which the government of Telangana took as a
measure to improve the available statistics to ensure better targeting of its
welfare programme. In retrospect it is seen as a very good attempt to enumerate
the households for preparing a data base for further planning at grass root level,
It proved that all such concerns were misplaced.

Some comments
The centre may be headed for a showdown with the Telangana government over an
intensive survey of 8.4 million households conducted by the administration of Indias
youngest state in just a day on Tuesday to map the socio-economic profiles of
households in the state.
Appropriate intervention will be made by the home ministry at an appropriate time, if
necessary, a senior home ministry official said in New Delhi, according to PTI, which
didnt identify the person.
The official said the centre is keeping a close eye on the situation arising out of the
12-hour survey, which the Telangana government undertook less than three months
after the state was created by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh.
The official cited suspicions among the people of the residuary Andhra Pradesh
statean apparent reference to concerns expressed recently that the data gathered
in the survey may be used to exclude people of that state, comprising the regions of
coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema, from state welfare programmes.
We hope good sense will prevail and the Telangana government will not do anything
that will escalate tension, the home ministry official said.
Politics
Tension has surfaced between Telangana and the National Democratic Alliance
(NDA) government at the centre over a recent central government order conferring
special powers on the state governor to deal with law and order in Hyderabad, which
has been designated joint capital of the new state and Andhra Pradesh for 10 years.
Telangana chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao wrote to Prime Minister Narendra
Modi asking him to rescind it.
Tuesdays household survey sought to capture information on households, including
educational qualifications, post office savings, bank account details of family
members, mobile phone numbers, Aadhaar card numbers, and gas connection details.
It sought information on whether families paid taxes, the number of rooms in their
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houses, the number of houses/plots a family owned, details of agricultural land and
livestock, and whether a house was connected to drinking water and electricity
networks. It also soughtto find out thekind of vehicles the families owned, and if they
were air-conditioned.
Rao described the survey as an eye-opener. For example, it brought to light that
there could be upwards of two million households in Hyderabad against the current
estimate of 1.5 million. Going by the surveys findings so far, Rao estimated Telangana
population to cross 40 million against Census 2011 estimates of 35 million.
Now that the government has a realistic picture of population, we can address
drinking water needs of the city appropriately, Rao said in Telugu. Everyone will see
benefits of thesurvey in thecoming days...
Some 369,000 government officials fanned out across 10 districts to obtain the
information from across the newly formed state, the 12th biggest in the country both
in terms of geographical area and population, after the government declared Tuesday
a holiday and ordered public and private establishments to shut down.
Governments view
The Telangana government has argued that the survey, when accomplished, will
prevent people from misusing welfare schemes such as the public distribution system
for subsidized food grain by giving out more than one address for themselves.
To make its case, the Telangana government has pointed out that while there are 8.4
million households in Telangana, according to current data available with the
government, 10.7 million ration cards have been issued in the state.
Some experts have questioned the legality of the exercise, saying the state
government might not have a lawful mandate to collect such data. While the statutory
framework authorizes the centre to undertake such data collection, states do not have
similar powers, some experts say.
Legal Issues
There is no statute which authorizes the states to collect information. It clearly
impinges on the privacy of citizens. Even the question of asking who is a domicile,
which can be relevant for purposes of determining jurisdiction of courts, getting
admission in certain education institutions, extending government schemes, is a grey
area, a noted legal luminary said.
The high court quashed petitions against the survey last week, and gave its go-ahead
to the Telangana government to proceed with the exercise after the latter assured the
court that citizens will not be forced to participate in the survey.

Opposition parties feared the information collected from the survey would be used to
identify people from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema who have settled in Telangana.
Following widespread criticism, the government scratched out three contentious
survey questions seeking information on the respondents native state, mother tongue,
and the length of time a person has been a resident of Telangana.
A positive note
From a welfare perspective, this sort of an exercise was overdue, said V. Srinivas
Chary, dean of research at Hyderabad-based Administrative Staff College of India.
The question is how they are going to use this data, streamline the data, and make
use of the data. They have to clean up the data, organize the data and based on the
data, they have to design the schemes and programmes.