Telangana: People up against caste survey; enumerators complain of resistance

People are also refusing to share information and are asking the enumerators to leave their house as they have no faith in the survey being conducted by the State government.

Hyderabad: Enumerators collecting household data as part of the door-to-door comprehensive Caste Census, aiming at assessing the Social, Economic, Educational, Employment, Political and Caste status of the people, are facing uphill task as a large number of people are not so keen in taking part in the survey and are questioning the status of applications they had submitted during the Praja Palana programme early this year. People are also refusing to share information and are asking the enumerators to leave their house as they have no faith in the survey being conducted by the State government.

People in many villages are arguing that during the Praja Palana programme, the State government collected applications for various schemes, including white ration cards and pension, but they had not received the benefits so far. They had stood in line for two to three days to submit applications during the Praja Palana programme and were expecting the government to provide benefits of various schemes and programmes promised by the Congress, but all the exercise was limited to paper work only, they said, adding that the present comprehensive caste survey would also prove a futile exercise and that the people would not get any kind of benefit.

---

“Why should we give details about our family? Last time we submitted applications under various schemes. What happened to them? Where are our pensions? The government is giving all the benefits to a few individuals. Why should we give details of our family? This time too the government will collect details and nothing will happen,” villagers are reportedly telling the enumerators.

According to some of the enumerators, the people were also asking about the Six Guarantees promised by the Congress during the Assembly elections.

“When the government was not providing any benefit to them, why should they give details about their family, they argue. Even those who are giving information too are not willing to provide information about their assets and caste. Why do you want to know about our properties? You have no right to ask about our assets. We will not give details of the assets is what they are telling us,” a woman enumerator said.

About 85,000 enumerators and over 19,000 supervisors have been deployed to collect the information from each household. The houses were identified and marked with a sticker during the first three days and actual information from each household is being collected from November 9. The questionnaire has over 50 questions in two major parts and some are having several sub questions, which will enable the enumerator to capture key elements of social, economic, education, income, political and caste information of all sections.