Caste census to involve teachers, lecturers

BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has directed the district collectors to engage teachers of bloc grant high schools, lecturers of aided colleges, contractual employees and competent group-D employees as enumerators and supervisors in the ensuing socio-economic caste census (SECC).‘’In case of shortfall of enumerators and supervisors for the census work, lecturers of aided colleges and contractual employees in Government offices having minimum graduation qualification should be engaged as supervisors while teachers of bloc grant high schools and suitable group-D Government employees with minimum qualification of higher secondary education be considered for the job of enumerators,’’ a circular from the Chief Secretary to the collectors said.While engaging the enumerators and supervisors, the district collectors should ensure that none of them is working under the geographical boundary of a gram panchayat.As the field work for the SECC is scheduled to start from September 15 and the census operation will be completed in three phases, appointment letters as per the prescribed format of the Centre should be issued to the selected master trainers, supervisors and enumerators.While district collectors have been appointed as principal SECC officers for their districts, ADMs and project directors of district rural development agencies (DRDAs) will function as additional district census officers.Tehsildars have been designated as charge officers at block level while BDOs are appointed as additional charge officers.A maximum 125 households with a population of 700 will constitute an enumeration block for the census and an enumeration team will consist of one enumerator and a data entry operator. One team is responsible for enumeration of four enumeration blocks while each supervisor will oversee the work of six enumeration teams. Meanwhile, instructions have been issued to all the districts for conducting training for the officials selected for the enumeration works