National Population Register work gets underway

BHUBANESWAR: The data collection under the National Population Register (NPR) is underway in the city with around 40 wards in Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) being covered under the exercise.In a recent a directive by the Central Government, the data collection under the NPR project has to be completed by the end of this year. The data collection under the BMC is being done basing on the census conducted in 2010. The work has started in the 40 wards out of the 60 wards. Still there are several households under every EB that need to be covered. Every ward has a few Enumeration Centres under which are some Enumeration Blocks (EB). Every enumeration centre has around 15 enumerators. One enumerator has been given the charge of one EB and under one EB there are around 150 to 200 households. “The households have been allotted basing on the physical capacity of each enumerator, said BMC deputy commissioner KP Pati. The major work of the enumerator is to intimate the household in advance about the biometric data collection and supervise the actual data collection.  Every enumerator also needs to be present while the data is being collected at the centre. The biometric data includes the retina scan and the finger print scan of all the 10 fingers. The BMC officials are hopeful that complete data collection for the city should be completed by year-end. The residents of the household are provided with a printout of the details taken to crosscheck if all the details have been recorded accurately. The card will be issued after it is ready, phasewise. The preliminary process for conducting the Socio-Economic Caste Survey (SECC) is also underway. The actual data collection is supposed to start very soon, most probably by June-end, according to senior BMC officials.