Bihar has created a pool of around three lakh accredited statistical volunteers whose services would be taken for gathering data from the grassroots level for various surveys.

Sources said the pool in Bihar was in all probability the highest in the country.

The pool has been created as part of the Bihar Integrated Statistical Development Programme (BISDP), which entails putting in place a system that would allow collection of data from ground in an authentic manner, ensuring cent per cent registration of all births and deaths and setting up automated weather stations in blocks for collecting weather-related data.

The Telegraph, had in November last year, carried a report on BISDP and also the state government’s plans to create a pool of volunteers whose services would be taken for data collection work.

“There are several works like crop cutting, crop survey and economic census among others which require people for data collection work. Keeping this thing in mind, we decided to seek applications from eligible persons so that they could be used as accredited statistical volunteers for these works,” directorate of economics and statistics head Jitendra Kumar Sinha told The Telegraph on Thursday.

The directorate has uploaded the list of accredited volunteers on its website www.des.bih.nic.in and very soon it would come out with advertisements to make applicants aware about the selection. As far as selection is concerned, it has been done on the basis of educational qualification of the applicants with Plus Two degree being the minimum. While preparing the merit list, weightage was given to candidates with statistics and mathematics background.

The accredited volunteers might earn around Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 a month on an average and the payment would be made in the form of honorarium which would be given in lieu of work taken from them.

“This is just an estimate based on the volume of work that has to be carried out in a given year on an average, but one’s name in the list of accredited volunteers does not guarantee any regular income as payments would be based on work taken from a given volunteer,” Sinha clarified.

Moreover, those having got the tag of accredited volunteer cannot take this tag for granted as the directorate would keep on checking data provided by them randomly and those found to be guilty of supplying fake data would lose the tag.

Of the Rs 80 crore fund earmarked for BISDP for the current fiscal, the directorate has planned to spend around Rs 35 crore for data collection work. A sum of Rs 5.5 crore would be spent on training of around 12,000 volunteers this year.

“Selection of trainees in the first batch would be based on seniority basis and each such trainee would be imparted one month training by our master trainers. The training is likely to commence in June this year,” Sinha said.

On the government’s move, Bimlesh Kumar of Dhoraiya block in Banka district said: “The state should ensure that the volunteers get work on regular basis else they would lose interest and start looking for other avenues.”