By The Hindu Bureau

Copyright thehindu

Technical glitches during enumeration, resistance from teachers,-and a lack of interest by people continued to mar the Social and Educational Survey on the second day. Many particularly highlighted difficulty in identifying houses since the Revenue Registration (RR) number of the energy meter is being used to geo-tag residences.

The fortnight-long survey being conducted by the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes has so far covered about 18,500 households of the estimated 2 crore households in the State.

Highlighting the RR number issue, a teacher in Koppal district said: “It would have been easier to identify the house with the voters’ list. We are finding it difficult in identifying houses.”

The households have been mapped for the first time in the country using the meter number. Earlier surveys used the voters’ list.

A government schoolteacher in Dakshina Kannada said that tracing each house in the absence of the list of names of house owners is becoming difficult.

“The app provides us only the numbers mentioned on the stickers pasted outside the houses, which are geo-tagged. It is challenging to use the location app to trace the house and get the information,” said another government teacher.

By the end of the second day, the enumeration of 18,487 houses had been completed covering a population of 71,004. The highest number of households surveyed was in Haveri with 2,783, while Tumakuru recorded the lowest at seven. Bengaluru Rural (77 households), Bengaluru Urban (53), Chickballapur (36), Kolar (60), and Udupi (55) were among the districts recording lower numbers.

“It is difficult to survey houses because the GPS doesn’t sync when scanning the bar codes on stickers affixed to houses. If you go to the location, you cannot find the house. So, the officials are asking to download a separate route map app to show the houses being surveyed and the CEG Face Recognition app for the photo identity of the heirs of the houses. However, our mobile phones did not support these apps,” said an enumerator of Bengaluru South district. “If you enter the UGHD (house) numbers in the census app, it shows failed.”

The teachers have also urged for an extension of time limit for entering the information in the survey app to allow them to obtain necessary documents. “Currently, three minutes are given and after that the process has to begin again,” another teacher said.

Refuse to join survey

In Belagavi, some teachers protested against being drafted into the survey work and refused to go for the survey, claiming that the Education Department officials had forced them to join. Seeking exemption from the survey work, they sat in protest.

Though graduate anganwadi workers have been called to assist teachers in the survey work, a representative of Dakshin Kannada District Anganwadi Workers’ Union said none have so far come forward.

Glitches continue

In Dakshina Kannada, enumerators continued to face problems logging into the survey app. They received an upgraded APK file on Tuesday. “We are unable to login to the upgraded survey app,” said a government primary schoolteacher in Puttur.

New enumerators were being drafted to the survey work and trained online in places such as Kalaburagi. In Dharwad, by the time technical issues were sorted, it was already 5 p.m and around 70% of the 4,800 enumerators were able to initiate the process after resolving the issues. “The survey will pick up on Wednesday as each of the enumerators will be completing survey of at least 10 households,” Chief Executive Officer of Dharwad Zilla Panchayat Bhuvanesh Patil told The Hindu.

(With inputs from Bengaluru, Mangaluru, Hubballi, Belagavi, Kalaburgi, Shivamogga)