BBC News Online: World: South Asia

India begins epic census

Several states, including Jammu and Kashmir, have already been surveyed for the census; now the process begins for the rest of the country.

However, counting has been postponed in Gujarat, where authorities are struggling to cope with the aftermath of the earthquake in which killed at least 30,000 people and left as many as one million homeless.

The decision was taken even before another powerful aftershock on Thursday, registering 5.3 on the Richter scale, added to the difficulties of the relief operations and to public anxiety.

Elsewhere, the exercise will take until the end of the month and involve around two million census workers, who will visit homes in more than 5,000 towns and cities and more than 600,000 villages.

Scale of change

Questions are designed to establish just how much change has taken place in the lives of urban and rural Indians as a result of the economic reforms that began at the time of the last census in 1991.

There are a number of changes to this year's census. Giving details of their occupation, respondents will this time be able to answer: "Software engineer".

The census will also shed new light on gender issues, particularly the ratio of females to males, which in the last census stood at 927 to 1,000.

Development experts say poorer care for girl children, abortion of female foetuses and sometimes even female infanticide contribute to the imbalance.

Census criticised

However, some have criticised the validity of some of the census questions.

She also cautioned about expecting too much too soon:"The complete data takes years to come. We still have not got all the information gathered in the 1991 census."

Despite this, census officials are confident the exercise will be more than a mere head count and give a true demographic picture of the country.