Office of Registrar-General of India

Why is in news? Office of Registrar-General of India following ‘obsolete’ criteria to define Scheduled Tribes

The Office of the Registrar-General of India (RGI) is following the set of criteria set out by the Lokur Committee, 1965 nearly 60 years ago to define any new community as a Scheduled Tribe.

Approval of the Office of the RGI is mandatory for the inclusion of any community on ST lists, as per the procedure for scheduling tribes.

The criteria set out by the Lokur Committee for defining a community as a tribe are: indications of primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the community at large, and backwardness.

The proposed criteria under the government’s consideration included “socio-economic, including educational, backwardness, vis-a-vis, the rest of the population of the State; historical geographical isolation which may or may not exist today; distinct language/dialect; presence of a core culture relating to life-cycle, marriage, songs, dance, paintings, folklore; endogamy, or in case of exogamy, marital relationship primarily with other STs (This criterion is for scheduling of a community as ST and not for determining ST status of an individual)”.

Office of Registrar-General of India:

The Census Organisation was set up on an ad-hoc basis for each Census till the 1951 Census.

The Government of India, in 1949 established an organisation in the Ministry of Home Affairs under Registrar General and ex-Officio Census Commissioner, India to develop systematic collection of statistics on the size of population, its growth, etc.

It arranges, conducts and analyses the results of the demographic surveys of India including Census of India and Linguistic Survey of India.

The Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India was founded in 1961.

The position of Registrar is usually held by a civil servant holding the rank of Joint Secretary.

Apart from conducting the Population Census and monitoring the implementation of the Registration of Births and Deaths in the country, it has been giving estimates on fertility and mortality using the Sample Registration System (SRS).

SRS is the largest demographic sample survey in the country that among other indicators provide direct estimates of maternal mortality through a nationally representative sample.

The Indian Census is the largest single source of a variety of statistical information on different characteristics of the people of India.

The responsibility of conducting the decadal census rests with the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.