And on Thursday, Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh criticised the Union government for delaying the 2021 census, stating that the postponement has prevented the collection of crucial information needed for economic planning and social justice programmes.The Congress leader shared on X a report in The Hindu that said the Union government is yet to take a call on conducting the next census exercise, but active discussion is on to expand the data collection to include caste enumeration.”India has been conducting a census regularly every ten years. The last such census was due in 2021. The continuing failure to conduct this 2021 census has meant that vital information necessary for economic planning and for social justice programmes has not been collected. As a result, for instance, over 12 crore Indians have been denied due benefits under the National Food Security Act, 2013/PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana,” Ramesh posted on X.”Now there are reports that the Union Government may conduct this long-overdue and unacceptably delayed census over the next few months. Every census since 1951 has been collecting data caste-wise on the population of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Without any difficulty, just by adding an extra column, the census questionnaire can also collect caste-wise data of the OBC population as well. This will fulfil the widespread demand for a caste census and will give more solid foundations to affirmative action programmes,” he added.The 2011 census dataAccording to the 2011 Census of India, the total population was 1.21 billion or 121.1 crore, with males constituting 51.5% (623.2 million or 62.32 crore) and females 48.5% (587.7 million or 58.77 crore).Uttar Pradesh, with a population of 199.5 million (19.95 crore), was the most populous state, followed by Maharashtra with 112 million (11.2 crore). Sikkim, with a population of 610,577 (6.11 lakh), was the least populous state.Bihar had the highest population density, while Arunachal Pradesh had the lowest. Lakshadweep had the smallest population among union territories. Kerala had the highest sex ratio and literacy rate, whereas Haryana had the lowest sex ratio and Bihar had the lowest literacy rate.India’s population increased by over 181 million (18.1 crore) from 2001 to 2011, representing a growth rate of 17.64%. Males grew by 17.19%, and females by 18.12%.In the 2011 census, 31.2% of the population lived in urban areas (377.1 million or 37.71 crore), and 68.8% resided in rural areas (833.8 million or 83.38 crore). Additionally, 453.6 million (45.36 crore) people, or 37.8% of the total population, were classified as migrants.The religious composition in 2011 was as follows: Hindus made up 79.8% (964.6 million or 96.46 crore), Muslims 14.2% (172.2 million or 17.22 crore), Christians 2.3% (27.8 million or 2.78 crore), Sikhs 1.7% (20.8 million or 2.08 crore), Buddhists 0.7% (8.4 million or 84 lakh), Jains 0.4% (4.5 million or 45 lakh), and other religions 0.9% (10.9 million or 1.09 crore).The percentage decadal growth rates for the six most populous states declined from 1991-2001 to 2001-2011: Uttar Pradesh fell from 25.85% to 20.09%, Maharashtra from 22.73% to 15.99%, Bihar from 28.62% to 25.07%, West Bengal from 17.77% to 13.93%, Andhra Pradesh from 14.59% to 11.10%, and Madhya Pradesh from 24.26% to 20.30%.
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