Centre amends Census rules; teachers of aided or unaided private bodies can be roped in as enumerators

New Delhi: The Centre on Friday amended the Census Rules, 1990, allowing states and union territories to appoint teachers of "aided or unaided private bodies" as enumerators during the Census, in the backdrop of various high courts staying the orders of government officials requisitioning services of such staff.

A gazette notification issued by the Registrar General of India (RGI), Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan, said "teachers, clerks, or any official or any person" can be appointed as census officers by state governments and union territories as enumerators.

Private teachers allowed for census duty

Friday's notification specifies that "teachers of any educational institution of the government, local authority, aided or unaided private bodies, societies or trusts; (ii) Clerks or any official of the central government, state government, local authority or establishment (including public sector undertakings, statutory bodies, banks, companies, institutions, societies and trusts); (iii) Any person, as the state government or the Union territory administration may consider suitable" can be appointed as a census officer to perform duties as an enumerator.

The changes come as various high courts across the country have given relief to teachers of aided or unaided private bodies from being roped in for duties as enumerators during the ongoing census.

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Recently on a petition filed by Haryana Progressive Schools Conference in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, challenging the requisition and deployment of teaching staff from private unaided schools for census duty, Justice Harpreet Singh Brar had stayed the operation of two Haryana government communications seeking details of available teachers for census duty.

The matter has now been listed for April 29, 2027. The petitioner contended that the government has no statutory authority under the Census Act, 1948, or the rules framed thereunder to requisition the teaching staff of private unaided schools for appointment as enumerators or supervisors for census duty.

Allahabad HC stays census duty orders

The plea said that Section 4A of the Census Act specifically contemplates making available officers and staff of local authorities for census-related work, whereas private unaided schools and their employees do not fall within the definition or scope of "local authority". In May, the Allahabad High Court had also stayed the orders of the District Inspector of Schools, Gautam Budh Nagar, seeking list of teaching and nonteaching staff all aided and unaided institutions for the purposes of census duty on similar ground.

"The court prima facie finds that the teaching and non-teaching staff of private institutions, whether aided or unaided, cannot be said to fall within the purview of local authorities' i.e., the B.S.A., D.I.O.S., and the D.P.R.O., who alone are required to provide their staff," the high court had said.

The Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court while hearing a petition filed by teachers of Centre Point School challenging the order of Deputy Commissioner Nagpur Municipal Corporation for appointing the teachers as enumerates and supervisors for census work. The Deputy Commissioner had allegedly threatened the principal of the school with criminal action if the order was followed.

"Thus, consistent view of the Apex Court as well as various High Courts and this Court is that the teachers or non-teaching staff of aided or unaided schools cannot be deputed for the work of Election as well as for the work of census," the bench had held in May. The 2027 Census, the eighth since independence, is being conducted in two phases - house-listing and housing census; and population enumeration.

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Census 2027: Rs 11,718 crore approved

The decennial exercise, scheduled for 2021, was postponed due to the Covid outbreak. The Union Cabinet has approved Rs 11,718 crore for conducting the census, which will be the biggest headcount exercise to date. Population enumeration in Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and areas other than the snow-bound regions of Uttarakhand will take place from December 1 to January 4, 2027, because of the assembly elections scheduled there for next year.

The Centre has deferred the house-listing operations for Census 2027 for Manipur, a notification issued by the RGI said last month. The exercise in Ladakh and the snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand took place from September 1 to 30.

For the rest of the country, the exercise is likely to begin next February, during which data on various demographic, socio-cultural and economic parameters, along with migration and fertility characteristics of individuals from each household, will be collected.