Gaya, Feb. 7: For once, the trend is set to reverse when government officials would pursue the homeless, faceless population of the district.

The reason: the people taking refuge on railway platforms, rain baseras (night halts) and other public places are to be enumerated during the 20-day census work set to begin in Gaya district from Wednesday.

As many as 10,193 personnel, including, 8,761 enumerators, 1,265 supervisors and 167 master trainers will be pressed into service to carry out the census work.

The district has been divided into 7,814 blocks and 947 sub-blocks. Additional district magistrate Sohaib Ahmad has been appointed as the nodal officer for the purposes, said Magadh division spokesperson Shamim Akhtar.

From February 9 to February 28, the enumerators would visit each household and count the population. On the night of February 28, the personnel would visit public places like railway platforms, bus stands and rain baseras which are used by a big chunk of population as night halts.

The survey is planned in the night as these people, mostly labourers, work all through the day and go back to the public spots to sleep. The census work is carried out after a gap of every 10 years.

Mostly teachers besides, panchayat sevaks, anganwadi sevikas and some retired government employees are involved in carrying out the census work.

When asked whether involving teachers would affect studies, district magistrate Sanjay Kumar Singh said that according to the directive of the state government, teachers would carry out the census work after the school hours are over. Apart from that, those schools where there are only two teachers have been exempted from the exercise.

“Census is a very important work carried out in the national interest as it becomes the base for deciding the policies for the development of the country and also for poverty eradication,” the district magistrate said.

Enumerators would fill up all the information sought in the prescribed form for the census. The information would include details of educational qualification, occupation and the number of members in the family.

After the census work is completed on February 28, enumerators would visit the households again in the first week of March and update the data of any new marriage, birth and the death in the family. In April too, a survey would be conducted to ascertain the types of houses people are living in and the facilities available there.

To ensure proper publicity of the census work and create awareness among people, debate, essay writing and quiz competitions are being organised in all middle and high schools and colleges in the district. Students have been roped in in the awareness programme so that they can explain the importance of census to the people, Singh said.