Registrar General of India has no info on 2018 plan to collect OBC data: RTI reply
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New Delhi: Amidst widespread clamour across a broad political spectrum for conducting caste-based census in the country, a disclosure has been made by the Office of the Registrar General of India (RGI) that data collection on Other Backward Classes (OBC) was conceived and announced by the Centre in 2018 as part of the 2021, but deliberations and file notings regarding the same are not available.
According to an RTI (Right to Information) reply to the Hindu newspaper, and published by it, the RGI said that data on castes, communities and OBCs, other than Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are not collected in the Census.
On August 31, 2018, the Ministry of Home Affairs had announced that OBC data would be collected for the first time in the next Census.
The press release, titled "Union Home Minister reviews preparation for Census 2021", said: "It is also envisaged to collect data on OBC for the first time."
In the light of the 2021 Census, its first phase consisting of the House listing and Housing Census, was initiated in April 2020, and was to be done together with an updated the National Population Register from April 2020, was put off due to the pandemic.
However, several states already raised objections to the exercise of data collection, on account of the additional data listed in the questionnaire for the same, seeing it as a step towards collecting particulars for a revised NRC (National Register of Citizens) and use of the same for denying or granting citizenship under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which had spurred country-wide protests.
The RGI, which works under the administrative control of the MHA, is the authority responsible for the decennial Census exercise.
In response to the RTI application made by the Hindu pertaining to the deliberations that took place in the RGI's office before the announcement in 2018 to collect data on OBCs, the office replied: "The information sought in the RTI application is not available with the undersigned."
Such data, if made available, would throw light on the ideas and plans contemplated and exchanged between the arms of the government concerned in the exercise and shown the latest status of the process.
The Hindu quoted the reply it received as: "It may be informed that the Office of the RGI in MHA is conducting decennial population Census since 1951 in which it collects and publishes data on various socio-demographic profiles of the people of India including those of the notified Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) of all States and Union Territories. The data on the castes/communities/OBCs, other than the notified SCs and STs are not collected in Census."