Parliamentary panel urges early Census, flags meagre Rs 575 crore allocation | India News
NEW DELHI: A parliamentary committee, while noting the meagre Rs 575 crore provided in 2025-26 budget for census and National Population Register (NPR) updation, has recommended that Census may be completed at the earliest.
Census 2021 and NPR updation exercise were to start in 2020 but put on hold due to Covid outbreak. The department-related parliamentary standing committee on home affairs, in its report on demands for grants for MHA — laid in Parliament on Monday — said the home ministry has informed it that the Rs 575 crore allocation is for preparatory Census/NPR work such as technological updates, salaries and allowances for Census staff, and geospatial mapping etc.
The ministry, however, assured the committee led by BJP MP in Rajya Sabha Radha Mohan Das Agarwal that as and when Census exercise is undertaken, additional funds shall be sought as per the year-wise requirement.
While the parliamentary committee called for early completion of census — a demand raised earlier by several opposition parties — sources in the govt indicated that a call may need to be taken first on whether to hold a caste census alongside, and, if yes, the methodology to be adopted to correctly capture the caste of respondents.
Census is crucial to the upcoming delimitation exercise, with the freeze on it set to end in 2026. The law requires the next delimitation — which has come under cloud with southern states expressing fears of landing a smaller share in enhanced seats due to slower population growth — to be based on the first census to be taken after 2026.
The parliamentary panel, while noting the manifold increase in cybercrimes across the country and how they cut across multiple state and police jurisdictions, recommended the setting up of a separate central police force, on the lines of NIA or CBI, to deal with cybercrimes.
The committee noted with concern how the actual allocations for many central police forces like CRPF, BSF, etc in 2025-26 have fallen short of projections. “Similarly, significant downward revisions have been made to allocations for the Intelligence Bureau (IB), NATGRID, central police organisations (CPOs) and Delhi Police,” it added.
Noting that such reductions may hit critical schemes and police modernisation programs, the committee recommended that the home ministry talk to the finance ministry to seek increased allocations at revised estimate stage.
Expressing concern over Rohingyas entering and settling illegally in various parts of the country, the panel called upon the home ministry to prepare the data on influx of immigrants like Bangladeshis, Rohingyas and those from other countries, and take steps to repatriate them to their parent countries.
