As Telangana gears up for an intensive household survey to be conducted by the Government on Tuesday, thousands of people who had migrated to far-off places in search of livelihood are rushing back to their native villages to participate in the process.

About four lakh Government employees, assisted by scores of part-time enumerators roped in for the survey, have begun visiting houses across the 10 districts of the new State. They will be knocking on the doors of about 85 lakh households, covering four crore people, to check how they fare on various socio-economic parameters — income, farm land and vehicle ownership and place of birth.

The idea of conducting a survey triggered a controversy ever since Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao announced the plan on August 1.

Hearing a public interest litigation (PIL), the Hyderabad High Court gave its go-ahead after the State Government assured the court that the survey was voluntary.

While the Government argues that the survey is aimed at ascertaining the exact number of households in the State in order to plan its schemes better, the Opposition and people from Seemandhra who live in the region feel that this may be a clever ploy to identify their roots and deny them welfare schemes.

“The number of ration cards far exceeds the number of people in the State. This is causing a big hole in the State finances. The survey is aimed at fixing this,” K Taraka Rama Rao, IT and Panchayat Minister, told Business Line , when asked about the fear created on account of the survey.

The fears, however, were not unfounded.

A draft that was doing the rounds had a column (with three questions) that sought to know a person’s origin. This accentuated fears among the Seemandhra people, as the new Government has fixed 1956 as a cut-off date to determine the nativity of students.

Those who moved to Telangana area after 1956 will not be eligible for the fee reimbursement scheme.

Some people feared the same may be extended to other welfare schemes. However, this controversial column was removed in the final format.

Pre-survey

Ahead of the main survey on Tuesday, thousands of enumerators have begun a pre-survey by giving a pamphlet and a dummy survey form, requesting people to fill them up and keep the required documents ready to be vetted by the visiting officials.

Pamphlets, printed in Telugu, Urdu and English, have asked people to get ready with their Aadhaar card, voter ID card, bank account numbers, and pattadaar passbook (farm land title deeds).

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