Agartala, Dec 5 : Ahead of the India's gigantic 2011 census operation, data collection for creation of the National Population Register (NPR) along with house listing and housing census will be taken up in May next year, officials said here Saturday.

"In the first phase of Census 2011, collection and compilation of facts and figures, house listing and housing census is likely to be taken up May 15, 2010 across India," senior census official Dilip Acherjee said.

He told reporters: "These statistical details would be incorporated to create the first ever NPR."

"These very critical and basic statistics of the NPR would form a database of every Indian and these would be maintained by the Unique Identification of India (UID), a proposed system to be used as a means of uniquely identifying the residents in the country."

The 45-day house listing and housing census besides collection and compilation of facts and figures would be completed by June 30 next year across India.

Acherjee said that the actual population enumeration would be undertaken simultaneously across the country from Feb 9 to Feb 28, 2011 followed by a five-day revision round from March 1-5, 2011.

The final census result would be declared March 25, 2011.

To conduct the census operation, several thousand enumerators, supervisors, census officers will be appointed across the country soon.

District magistrates and collectors would be the Principal Census Officers (PCO) of the concerned district while sub-divisional magistrates and block development officers would be the sub-divisional census officers and charge census officers respectively.

"The Indian census has a rich tradition and enjoys the reputation of being one of the best in the world. The first census in India had conducted in 1872 with a diverse schedule and separately in different regions. In 1981, a census was taken for the entire country simultaneously."

Acherjee said: "The 2011 census would be the 15th census since 1872 and the seventh census after India's independence."

For the first time United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) would help to create master trainers, who would educate the enumerators and supervisors to conducted the massive census operation.(IANS)