NEW DELHI: The Karnataka high court on Thursday declined to stay the socio-educational survey, popularly known as a caste survey, in the state. The court, however, asked the authorities to issue a notification that participation is voluntary and not to disclose any data obtained from participants.The survey – which will record the social, economic, educational, and political representation of every caste and community in Karnataka – is the second such in 10 years. This time, the state is relying heavily on technology to help them complete the enumeration process in 15 days.The survey got off to a sluggish start on Monday, with 1.7 lakh enumerators covering barely 400 houses and 1,100 people in Karnataka by noon. Officials said the pace was expected to pick up in the coming days, with field timings fixed between 9am and 5pm.KA Dayanand, member-secretary of Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes (KSCBC), attributed the slow beginning to teething troubles. “Today being Day 1, we expected a slow start, as enumerators had to download these applications and start using them. We will see more traction in the next couple of days,” he told TOI.Complaints poured in from across the state about delays and glitches in the mobile application used for the exercise. Delays in receiving OTPs for Aadhaar authentication left many respondents impatient.“With enumerators having a larger area to cover, 150 houses per block and asking responses for 60 questions per household, a delay of 2-5 minutes in verifying credentials of respondents has become time-consuming,” one enumerator said.In several cases, final submissions were not accepted by the software, while poor network connectivity in rural areas compounded the problem.In Bengaluru Urban and Dakshina Kannada districts, fieldwork did not start even by Monday. While officials cited incomplete training as a reason for delays in Bengaluru, confusion reigned in Dakshina Kannada, where enumerators doubling as booth-level officers were also burdened with Election Commission’s forthcoming special intensive revision of voter lists.Teachers pressed into the survey raised concerns about downloading the app and securing an uninterrupted mobile network. Chandrashekar Nugli, president of Primary School Teachers’ Association, said, “We expect these things to stabilise, with our teachers picking up pace from tomorrow.”Enumerators spoke of the hurdles they faced on Day 1. “We collected the kit at Ron tahsildar’s office. We could only download the app – KSBC Social and Educational Survey – by noon. We were told to do a census of 4-5 houses, but could not do it due to technical difficulties. Some of our colleagues, though, started it, but many of us couldn’t,” Vijayalaxmi, a teacher in Gadag district, said.Kamala, a teacher in Haveri district, said: “…I started the survey, but the first family failed to provide adequate information, so I couldn’t upload the details. I successfully uploaded details from the second house after 3 hours.”
