Amit Shah says next Census in 2021 will be done digitally, proposes multipurpose ID card for NPR rollout

To give a boost to the government’s digitisation efforts, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has announced that in the upcoming Census in 2021, a mobile app will be used for data collection. Shah also said the Centre was likely set to spend Rs 12,000 crore on the 2021 Census as well as the preparation of the National Population Register (NPR).

“A mobile app will be used in Census 2021. It will be a transformation from paper census to digital census,” Shah said at an event in Delhi, according to a report by NDTV .

Shah even put forth an idea to have a multipurpose ID card for every citizen which includes the passport, Aadhaar and voter ID card.

This is in line with an announcement made by officials of Registrar General of India in April this year, which said that for the first time in the 140 year history of Census in India, the 2021 data collection will be done through a mobile app and enumerators would be encouraged to use their own mobile phone.

Meanwhile, the Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba also urged caution while using technology for data collection and stressed that data confidentiality should be maintained. India’s last census was carried out in 2011 when the country’s population stood at 121 crore. Shah has said that around Rs 12,000 crore will be set aside for India’s first digital census in 2021.

In March this year, the government announced that the next census will be done with 1 March 2021 as the reference date.