Massive Household Survey completed in a single day

HYDERABAD: Socio-economic data of nearly four crore population of Telangana was gathered Tuesday under the intensive household survey, claimed to be the first exercise of its kind anywhere in the country.

About 90 percent of nearly a crore households was covered under the survey in all districts of the state including Hyderabad. Nearly four lakh government employees collected the details in door-to-door survey, which ended at 7 p.m. in the districts but is likely to continue till later in Hyderabad.

Terming the survey "historic" and a "super hit", Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao thanked the people for their tremendous response despite the attempts by some quarters to create controversies and spread misinformation.

The chief minister told a news conference in the evening that the data would be compiled and computerized in 10 to 15 days and will be available from his office down to the office of a gram panchayat or a village.

Rao said the data would help the government in identifying the real beneficiaries of various welfare schemes, weeding out the bogus ones and also in better planning of its programmes to meet the requirement of the population.

"Statistics are key to success of any programme. The government itself was in dark about the population in Hyderabad. It was estimated to be 80 to 90 lakh but the survey shows that it has crossed 1.20 crore," he said.

Thanking the government employees and college students for carrying out the survey without any remuneration, Rao, also the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief, said if people continue their cooperation, the government can realize the dream of "golden Telangana".

Brushing aside the criticism by opposition and allegations that it is aimed at singling out people from Andhra Pradesh living in Hyderabad, the TRS government embarked on the massive exercise.

The survey began at 7 a.m. across the state with enumerators going door-to-door to gather information like names, age, educational qualification, profession, Adhar card numbers, bank account number, property and other details of the family members.

In Hyderabad, as many as 75,000 government employees gathered data of 20 lakh families in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).

Contrary to speculations in some circles that the survey is aimed at targeting people from Andhra Pradesh living in Hyderabad, the survey form has no nativity column. Even declaring bank account number was optional.

The GHMC officials gathered data from Chandrasekhara Rao and Governor E. S. L. Narasimhan and their family members. As Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and his family members were not available at their residence, GHMC collected details from his family.

Normal life came to a complete halt across Telangana as the government declared a holiday to enable people to remain at home and participate in the survey.

Shops, petrol bunks, hotels, cinema halls, business establishments, companies, factories and educational institutions remained shut. All buses of state owned Road Transport Corporation (RTC) buses went off the roads.

Thousands of people from various parts of the country reached their home towns and villages for the survey. Families residing in Hyderabad but having their records registered in districts also headed for their native places to participate in the survey.

The TRS government said lack of credible data was a major hurdle in planning and implementation of welfare scheme as total number of ration cards exceed the number of households.

It alleged that huge irregularities were committed in the past in implantation of schemes like housing for poor, reimbursement of fee of poor students, free healthcare and social pensions.

Despite criticism, it went ahead with the survey in a single day to ensure that there is no duplication and bogus beneficiaries are removed.

Stating that the data will help the government to ensure that there is no pilferage of a single paisa, Rao appealed to other states to undertake similar exercise for improving implementation of welfare schemes.