Mizoram is Not Afraid of Census

Aizawl, Feb 10 : Mizoram had made interesting headlines when more than 1000 religious fanatics refused to get enrolled in the National Population Registry that came along with the first phase of the Census 2011 last year.

''So far as our knowledge is concerned, no one is afraid to enroll in the census. What those people actually feared was the National Population Registry conducted last year that required one's biometric details,'' Mizoram director of census operations H P Sahu said at a press conference here today, ahead of the second phase of Census 2011 that begins from February 9 across the country.

According to Mr Sahu, the census operations will last till February 28 and there will be revision rounds from March 1 to 5.

About 2,250 enumerators and 450 supervisors mostly drawn from school teachers throughout the state have been appointed and have been imparted a training by 50 master trainers, three master trainer facilitators, one gender master trainer facilitator and one national trainer.

All these enumerators and supervisors are supervised by 50 census charge officers under the guidance of the principal census officers, who are deputy commissioners.

Census 2011, which is the 15th national census in India will be the third census for Mizoram after it became a Union Territory in 1972. Before 1972, Mizoram (then Mizo Hills) was a district council under Assam.

The population of Mizoram in 2001 Census was 888,573. Of them, 839,310 are Scheduled Tribes (STs) constituting 94.5 per cent of the total population of the state.

Mizoram Governor Lt Gen (rtd) M M Lakhera has made an appeal to the people of Mizoram to actively cooperate with the enumerators to ensure accurate registration and to complete the operations on time.

The fear of the 'Beast' or the Devil mentioned in the Bible's Book of Revelation had caused almost 1,000 families in the Christian-dominated state of Mizoram to refuse to enroll their names in the National Population Register (NPR) taken up along with the first phase of Census 2011 last year.

The dread stems from Chapter 13 Verse 17 of the Book of Revelations in the Bible which says ''... and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or the name of the Beast or the number of his name.'' The problem has stemmed from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI) stipulating that none could buy or sell property without the Unique ID card.