Pilot claimed that the Modi government is delaying the caste census just as it had done on the women’s reservation issue.”We say that the government should stop politicising this and work effectively and adopt the ‘Telangana model’ for caste census at the national level,” he said.”Look at the intention of the BJP government, where 8-10 thousand crore rupees are spent in conducting the census, the government has allocated only 570 crore rupees in the budget,” he said.”The government is telling the people that it will conduct caste census, but this thing is missing from the formal notification,” Pilot said.The Congress stuck to its allegations even as the BJP hit back at the opposition party, accusing it of carrying out “false and misleading” propaganda on Census 2027 because its hope of gaining power by creating division in society is falling apart with the government’s decision to include caste enumeration in the nationwide exercise.Pilot said the Congress government in Telangana has done the caste survey work in a very good manner.”They did not involve government officials but engaged NGOs and technical people for their survey,” he said.”Caste census is the first step through which we will know the economic and social status of the people, but the Modi government does not seem to have any intention of conducting caste census,” he claimed.The idea of the Congress is to have an expansive detailed survey of the conditions in which people live — access to education, jobs, government schemes and economic situation, to do better policy formulation, Pilot said.”The objective of the exercise is not just to get the name and the caste of a person – that I don’t think has that much value. The real value is that you understand in what condition they are living, how successful the schemes have been so far, are the targeted budgets and policy programmes reaching the ones that we are intending for,” he said.”So that’s what Mr Gandhi says ‘x-ray’ of the country. That is what we require to be done and it requires not just government efforts, it requires participation from NGOs, experts in that field. Telangana should be the model adopted by the government,” Pilot said.The Congress on Monday had termed the notification for India’s 16th census as a “damp squib” and asserted that the Modi government must adopt the Telangana model for not just caste enumeration but also in bringing out detailed data on socioeconomic parameters caste-wise.The opposition party also said the notification is “silent” on the inclusion of caste in the exercise and asked whether this is another “U-turn” by the government.However, an MHA spokesperson had dismissed such claims as misleading.”It has already been mentioned in the press releases dated 30 April, 4 June and 15 June 2025 that census will also have caste enumeration,” the spokesperson had said.
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