Chennai, June 9 : Tamil Nadu has begun extensive preparations for the nationwide Census exercise, with around 1.40 lakh enumerators set to undergo a month-long training programme from the last week of June ahead of the household enumeration scheduled between August 1 and August 30.

The Census operation, one of the largest administrative exercises undertaken in the country, will involve school teachers, corporation staff and employees from various government departments who have been identified as enumerators for door-to-door data collection across the State.

As part of the preparatory process, nearly 2,700 district-level field trainers are currently undergoing specialised training. These trainers will, in turn, conduct detailed sessions for the enumerators, equipping them with the procedures and techniques required for accurate household enumeration.

M. Sundaresh Babu, Director of Census Operations, Tamil Nadu, said the field trainers had been appointed at the request of the Directorate of Census Operations and would play a crucial role in ensuring uniformity and accuracy in data collection.

â??About 2,700 field-level trainers are being trained this week. They will subsequently impart training to nearly 1.40 lakh enumerators who will be engaged in the household Census exercise across Tamil Nadu,â?? he said.

Officials said each enumerator would be assigned approximately 200 households during the month-long survey. Based on this estimate, the Census operation is expected to cover nearly 2.80 crore households across the state, making it one of the most extensive data-gathering exercises undertaken by the government.

Before the commencement of field enumeration, residents will have an opportunity to participate in a self-enumeration phase from July 17 to July 31.

During this period, households can voluntarily submit their details online, reducing the time required for field verification and improving the efficiency of the survey process.

The house-listing phase, which marks the first stage of the Census, will collect detailed information on households and living conditions. Enumerators will gather data on the number of residents in a household, housing characteristics, access to basic amenities, ownership of vehicles and other household assets, among other socio-economic indicators.

Officials said the information collected during the exercise would serve as a crucial database for planning, policy formulation and the implementation of welfare and development programmes in the years ahead.

/IANS