Census 2011 kicked off today

April 1 marked the beginning of the ever biggest Census in the human history that covers Indian population of 1.2 billion people.

The President Pratibha Patil was the first citizen to be enumerated in this decennial exercise.

Sharing her personal details with a census enumerator, the president said. “My name is Pratibha Devi Singh Patil and my permanent address is Jalgaon, Maharashtra.”

In the morning the delegation including the Home Minister P Chidambaram, Home Secretary GK Pillai and other census officials visited the Rashtrapati Bhavan to collect the information from the president to count and make a data base of each and every citizen.

The colossal exercise of the Census 2011 will be the 15th National Census exercise of India’s population since year 1872. It is to be performed in two phases for creating a database about demography, economic activity, literacy and education, housing and household amenities, urbanization, fertility and mortality, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, language, religion and migration.

It is for the foremost time when the officials would step forward towards details about ownership of mobile phones, computers, internet, and availability of treated or untreated drinking water facility besides the demographics and economic activity.

The complete results of the census will be released in mid-2011.