In a significant move, Home Ministry officials on Wednesday stated that the Indian government will collect data on households headed by a person from the transgender community and members living in the family.

As part of the house-listing and housing Census exercise which is scheduled from April 1 to September 30, officers will be asking for specific information based on 31 questions from every household.

Sub-options like male, female and transgender will be available under the head ‘sex of the head of the household’, the officials said.

‘It is for the first time that information on households headed by a transgender is being collected. In the earlier census, there used to be a column for male and female-only,’ NDTV quoted an officer as saying.

There will also be a separate section of data collection on ‘ownership status of the census house’ to specify whether it is owned or rented.

According to a notification issued by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, information like Building number (municipal or local authority or census number), census house number, predominant material of the floor, wall and roof of the census house, use of census house, condition of the census house, household number and total number of persons normally residing in the household, has to be provided by the people.

The option of Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe or ”Other” category is also included in the head of the household section.

The 2011 census included a question on ‘toilet within the premise’, instead of this, the enumerators will ask about the ‘access to the toilet’ and whether a toilet is shared, exclusive for the family or public.

The enumerators will also ask questions related to the main source of lighting, whether the family has ‘access to latrine’, ‘type of latrine’, ‘wastewater outlet’, ‘availability of bathing facility’, ‘availability of kitchen and LPG/PNG connection’ and ‘main fuel used for cooking’.

Moving with times, the 2021 census will not be conducted through the traditional pen and paper, but with a mobile phone application.

The reference date for census has been set at March 1, 2021, but for Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand it will be October 1, 2020, keeping the climatic conditions in mind.

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