Cabinet to fix caste in census
|
COMMENTS 
A day after the Group of Ministers gave the go-ahead for caste enumeration in the census, Parliament was informed that the final decision on “how and when” will be taken by the Cabinet
Finance Minister and Leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee, who headed the Group of Ministers (GoM) on the issue of caste enumeration in the census, announced in the Lok Sabha that the Union Cabinet would take a final decision on the timing and mechanism of the exercise.
Mukherjee said: “The Group of Ministers wrote to all the political parties and we have received a response from the political parties. The Group of Ministers met yesterday and they considered the written response of all the political parties. The decision taken by the Group of Ministers is that caste will be converged in the census without affecting the integrity of the head count. How and when this should be done is under consideration.”
“Some suggestions have been made by the leaders today. All these will be kept in view and an appropriate decision on the mechanism will be taken shortly. As the decision will have to be taken by the Cabinet, I will be able to inform the House only after the Cabinet takes the decision,” the minister added.
The Opposition and parties representing other backward classes (OBCs) have put pressure on the government to take up a caste head count during the second phase of the census exercise instead of at the biometric stage. After an uproar in Parliament, many of them met Mukherjee and Union Home Minister P Chidambaram. They told the ministers that taking up a caste census in the biometric stage would defeat the purpose as it would be a long-drawn-out process.
The GoM had recommended that caste information could be recorded in the last stage of Census 2011 when biometric information would be gathered. The biometric parameters include photographs, fingerprints and iris-mapping of citizens which would be collected for the NPR to create a multi-purpose unique identity card. The first stage of the census -- the household and family survey -- which began in April is nearly over and the second phase has already begun.
Sources in the Opposition claimed Mukherjee and Chidambaram have indicated to them that the government was inclined to go in for a caste census, but that it could not publicly state how it would be done on the floor of the House without Cabinet having taken a formal decision.
Source: The Economic Times, August 13, 2010
The Indian Express, August 13, 2010