District Census Hadbook - An utility publication :

One of the most important utility publications brought out by the Census organisation is the series 'District Census Handbooks', (DCHB), for each district separately. These DCHBs provide village and town level basic tables compiled from Census as well non-Census sources. It is the only source that gives information on each village and town on several demographic and socio-economic characteristics and also on availability of important civic amenities. For grass root level planning at the village and town level, the DCHBs continue to remain one of the basic sources of comprehensive, latest and reliable database for taking conscious decisions regarding resource allocation and planned development.

Scope and coverage of District Census Handbook of 1951- 1991 Censuses:

In 1951 Census the scope of the DCHB was confined to certain important census tables on population, economic and socio-cultural aspects as also the Primary Census Abstract (PCA) of each village and town of the district. The DCHB published for the 1961 Census contained a descriptive account of the district, administrative statistics, census tables and Village and Town Directories including PCA. At the 1971 Census, the DCHBs were brought out in two parts, viz., Part-A comprising Village and Town Directories and Part-B comprising Village and Town PCA in respect of all the States and Union territories. The Third Part of the DCHBs comprising administrative statistics and district census tables could not be published in many States/ Union territories due to delay in compilation of the requisite material. At the 1981 Census, certain new features along with restructuring of the format of Village and Town Directory were introduced in the DCHB. The DCHB was published in two parts for each district. While Part-A comprised Village and Town Directories, the PCA of Villages and Towns (ward-wise) including Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes PCA up to tahsil/ town level were provided in Part-B. All the amenities except power supply in the village have been brought together in the Village Directory with the instruction that in case an amenity is not available in the referent village, the distance in broad ranges from the nearest place where the amenity is available may be given. Information on some new items such as adult literacy centres, primary health sub-centres and community health workers in the village were provided so as to meet some of the requirements of the Revised Minimum Needs Programme. Similarly, information on approach to the village was also provided for the first time in the Village Directory so as to give an idea about the number of inaccessible villages in each district. In case of Town Directories also, keeping in view the requirements of the Minimum Needs Programme, a Statement (IV-A) on slums was provided so as to enable the planners to chalk out the programmes for providing civic amenities in the slums. In this statement details on civic and other amenities were presented for the notified slums of Class I and Class II towns. Apart from this, one column on the Scheduled Caste and the Scheduled Tribe population and another on adult literacy classes / centres added in Statements IV and V respectively.

The manner of presentation of the DCHBs for the 1991 Census was by and large the same as followed in 1981 Census. However, the format of PCA was restructured slightly in the 1991 Census for the benefit of data users. Nine-fold industrial classification of main workers was given as against four-fold industrial classification presented in the 1981 Census. In addition to this, the sex-wise population of the 0-6 age group was also included in PCA for the first time with a view to enabling data users to compute more realistic literacy rate as all children below 7 years of age have been treated as illiterate at the time of the 1991 Census. It was expected that the above-mentioned modifications would help the planners in chalking out more effective developmental programmes at local level.

One of the most important innovations in the 1991 Census was the Community Development (C. D.) Block-level presentation of data in the Village Directory and PCA instead of the traditional Tahsil / Taluka / PS level presentation. It was expected that the presentation of Village Directory and PCA data at C.D. Block level will help the planners in formulation of micro level developmental plans, as the C.D. Blocks is the lowest administrative unit for developmental planning. In order to facilitate the task of administrators, planners and researchers intending to use Village Directory/PCA data, either from the magnetic tapes/floppies or from the published records, both the computer and manual codes for each village were provided for the 1991 Census along with the corresponding codes of 1981.