A political party president has written to the Prime Minister to request a structured, drop-down-based system for recording caste details in the upcoming caste census, instead of allowing citizens to type caste names freely. The politician argued that open text fields create confusion due to multiple sub-castes, regional spellings, and local names, pointing out that the 2011 census generated millions of distinct entries that made the data unwieldy.
To fix this, the proposal suggests integrating official central and state caste lists into the census application so enumerators can select standard entries from a menu. The letter cited recent surveys in Bihar and Telangana as proof that this approach works, noting that the issue is time-sensitive since the census is scheduled to begin soon in hill states and the rest of the country.
Separately, the leader has urged the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to conduct a dedicated state-level caste census regardless of the national timeline. The Centre has not yet publicly responded to the drop-down proposal.