The Times of India          07.11.2013

Civic body begins sixth economic census

KOLHAPUR: The Kolhapur Municipal Corporation (KMC) started the sixth economic census in the city on Wednesday. As part of the exercise, the civic body organized a training session for its workers and others at Keshavrao Bhosale Natyagriha in the afternoon.

Altogether 125 youths and 40 employees of the KMC participated in the session. The economic census, which is being undertaken by the Union government, is to be completed by November 15.

The workers will go from door to door and shop to shop to gather information regarding economic activities carried out by people, families and individuals.

Soon after the training session concluded, the workers and youths began the actual work. Ashok Yadav, census officer in the KMC, said, "While conducting the census, we will take note of all the business activities under the jurisdiction of the civic body. The participants have been trained to visit every household in the city and note down every activity of everyone from retailers to wholesalers. They need not take down the details of the family members and take note of only business-related activities run by the family".

"The population of Kolhapur is around 5.5 lakh and we were expecting around 230 youths to participate in the census," Yadav said.

"We did not appeal to anybody to participate in the drive and help us complete the census. We only asked NGOs and groups of senior citizens in the city to spread the message among unemployed youths to register themselves and participate in the census. Altogether 125 youths have approached us so far and we need 100 more to complete the census by November 15, which is the deadline to submit the details to the statistical department," Yadav said.

Households with retail shops, photocopy machines, ice-cream parlours, beauty parlours and cottage industry will be registered by census officials. Through the census, the KMC officials expect to register around 28,000 business establishments. During the last census, the civic body had recorded 23,000 businesses in the city.

"The census was to start from October 1 but due to some official obstacles, we could not initiate the programme before Diwali. Now, the pressure is mounting on us to complete it by November 15 which seems difficult. We expect the government to extend the date till November 30," Yadav added.