NEW DELHI, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Indian government on Tuesday approved a budget of over 13,000 crore Indian rupees (1.9 billion U.S. dollars) for carrying out Census-2021 and updating the National Population Register (NPR), Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar said.
The exercise to update the NPR will begin from April 2020. This will be the 16th Census exercise in India's history, and the second to update the NPR.
Javadekar said the massive exercise would engage hundreds and thousands of people who would go from house to house to collect the relevant data.
The objective of carrying out the two programs simultaneously is to identify and reach out to the targeted beneficiaries of various Indian government's schemes and policies, the minister told the media.
The NPR is a list of "usual residents" of the country. A "usual resident" is a person who has resided in a local area for the past six months or more, or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more.
"We are launching a massive programme for National Census which happens every 10 years. 2021 is the Census year. Every house will be mapped and listed between April and September 2020, and in February 2021 headcount will be done," Javadekar said.
"A special mobile application will be created to enable citizens to upload their details. It is self declaration. No document is required, no proof is required, no biometric is required."
The NPR data was collected in 2010 along with the house-listing phase of Census of India 2011. It was updated in 2015 by conducting door-to-door survey.
The digitisation of the updated information has been completed. It is mandatory for every usual resident of India to register in the NPR.
