An army of enumerators

Telangana govt working overtime to put together massive workforce for August 19 survey.
With the entire Telangana government machinery gearing up to conduct the first intensive household survey on August 19 ostensibly to identify genuine beneficiaries of various state welfare schemes, the authorities are desperately putting together the workforce needed to carry out the same.
Realizing that it is well short of the required number of enumerators, the Telangana government has roped in police personnel, pensioners and college students to undertake the survey. While Cyberabad police is deploying 5,000 police personnel, from home guards to sub inspectors, to carry out the survey, 4,000 such personnel from Hyderabad police will do the same. Meanwhile, Hyderabad collector M K Meena has written to college managements seeking the services of its students.
Telangana Non-Gazetted Officers (TNGO) Association president, G Devi Prasad Rao, said the enumerators will be drawn from the four-lakh government employees currently working in the Telangana government. "Telangana government employees, irrespective of them being from the Seemandhra region, will conduct the survey if deputed for the job. We will not seek the services of employees working in the Andhra Pradesh government. We are also taking the help of pensioners to carry out the survey," he said.
In the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation area, at least 50,000 enumerators would be required to undertake the survey of the 20 lakh households that falls in its jurisdiction. "Ideally, between 8 am to 8 pm, each enumerator can survey about 20-25 households.
But even after enlisting the services of police personnel, pensioners and college students, we are likely to fall short because of which each enumerator might be forced to survey as many as 40-50 households, which appears to be an impossible task to be carried out in a single day," said an official.
Meanwhile, even as the state government on Tuesday declared August 19 as a general holiday for all private establishments under the Telangana Shops and Establishments Act, educational institutions too, toeing the line of the Telangana government's announcement, declared the day of survey as a holiday for its staff and students. Some schools in Hyderabad went to the extent of declaring even August 20 as a holiday on the grounds that their staff including drivers would have gone to their native villages in Telangana and would need another day to report to work.
The IT sector, however, is still to decide whether to declare August 19 a holiday. Sources in the industry said the IT bigwigs have already conveyed to the TRS government that they cannot close on that day as they have been given a very short notice. "However, we were assured by the state that they will come up with some solution," said a source.
FEAR FACTOR
In the meantime, despite officials clarifying that there are no nativity queries in the questionnaire, various surveys continued to surface on websites of which some, including the official Telangana government website even as late as Tuesday evening carried a question which asked the household whether they were from out of state, and if so, from where, what language they spoke at home and what was the year they came to Hyderabad and Telangana. As a result, the concern among the Seemandhra population in the Greater Hyderabad region that they are being targeted has not subsided.
"It is not just the nativity factor. The questionnaire seeks to know details and extent of property owned by members of a household. Why do they need it, if not only to identify the Seemandhra people and force them to leave the city," said M R Prasad, a Seemandhra IT employee living in Madhapur.
NO GAZETTE NOTIFICATION!
Justice Vilas V Afzal Purkar of the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday enquired from a petitioner whether she can furnish a copy of the gazette notification of the Telangana government's decision to conduct a household survey in the state on August 19. The judge was dealing with a petition filed by Seetha Lakshmi, an advocate from Hyderabad, who wanted the court to declare the said survey as illegal because it is against the existing laws and invades the privacy of individuals. The decision of the Telangana regime is contrary to the Collection of Statistics Act 2008, she said, urging the court to stall the process. The counsel for the petitioner said that the state is going ahead with the survey without any basis and gazette notification. The judge posted the case to Wednesday for further hearing.