India's census: The largest since the 'beginning of mankind'

Home to 1.3 billion

If a country needs to know how many hospitals to build, how much to spend on public transport and how to plan future infrastructure projects, it needs to know how many people it needs to provide for, but what do you do if your country has one of the largest populations in the world?

That is the problem facing India who, after China, has the largest population in the world with over a billion people. With that in mind, how do you go about conducting your ten-yearly census, which, many have described as the biggest attempt in human history to count and classify the citizens of a single nation.

While China may, for now, hold the largest population in the world with 1.3 billion, some Indian officials believe that this may not be the case for long as the new census aims to be more "comprehensive and logistically complex" than the last Chinese census in 2000.

Unprecedented scale

The scale of the census seems like a daunting challenge, but the Indian government appear to be up to the job. 2.5 million officials are to be utilised for the task with 12,000 tonnes of paperwork printed in 18 languages set to be distributed from the Himalayas in the north to the Andaman Islands in the south.

The enormous undertaking is expected to cost $1.3 billion, but unlike the American census that had under ten questions on it, the Indian census will not only count the population but gather information on population fertility, literacy and mortality, as well as the number of mobile phones in households, internet connections and bank accounts. While many might view this as a privacy issue, India have stated it is to assess the country's economic boom of the past decade.

The information will also be used to compile the National Population Register, a biometric database that includes photographs and prints of all ten fingers for every “usual resident” over the age of 15. With this information, the Indian government will then issue a national identity card to everyone over 18, complete with unique 16-digit identity number from November.

Speaking to The Times, Palaniappan Chidambaram, the Home Minister said, "Never before have we tried an exercise of this scale. In fact, nowhere in the world has a government tried to count, identify and issue identity cards to more than a billion population. This is the biggest exercise, I believe, since humankind came into existence."

And the American government thought they had a big job on their hands...

Relevant articles:

US 2010 Census: Who needs it? | Megacities in Asia: Benefits or burdens? | Megaprojects of Asia

Timon Singh

Timon Singh is a graduate of Liverpool University where he received a degree in Social and Economic History. He has previously worked for BBC Magazines on BBC Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine, the publication for the popular genealogy show.

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