Internet access, type of cereal & water consumed ⁠— questions in new census exercise

The new census exercise is scheduled to take place between 1 April and 30 September.

The well in the village in Urwa, residents say, has very dirty water but still use it for household purposes | Photo: Manisha Mondal | ThePrint

New Delhi: What cereals you eat? Do you drink packaged water?

These are part of a series of questions to be asked by census officers to gather information from every household during the houselisting and housing census exercise scheduled from April 1 to September 30, Home Ministry officials said on Wednesday.

The data will be collected on the “main cereal consumed in the household”, the “main source of drinking water” — whether it is packaged or bottled, “access to internet” and “television” — whether a household is using the free direct-to-home service by Doordarshan, cable or from any other source, among others, they said.

The data, the officials said, would help in providing the benefits of different government schemes to the intended beneficiaries.

The registrar general and census commissioner has issued a notification mentioning these questions in a form, to be digitally filled by the enumerators, they said.

According to rules, a person may be punished with a fine of up to Rs 1,000 for intentionally giving false answers to the questions or refusing to answer those, the officials said.