Being a new practice, the census observation was obviously a challenging task for the NCOC.
The challenge was primarily in terms of winning the trust of the people, census functionaries
at different levels, members of civil society, and the users of the census data. However, over
time, NCOC got overwhelming support of all sides, and successfully completed the
observation of field enumeration of PHC 2011. With a few exceptions, reports suggest,
NCOC also got a good support of all census functionaries at all levels in the field observation
processes. CBS authority also highly appreciated the NCOC's census observation work and
acknowledged the contribution made by the NCOC to enhance the quality of the data.27
The field enumeration of PHC 2011 went smoothly. No social, political and administrative
conflicts were observed to affect the field enumeration over the country. Publicity campaigns
on the census were also felt to be widely launched in different parts of the country from
government as well non-government levels. The non-government level, which generally
included civil society and caste/ethnic organizations, were found to be more aggressively
involved in campaigns targeting to their own communities. These organizations campaigned
to raise awareness on group identity and motivate people for correct reporting of their identity
in terms of sub-group, caste, religion, disabilities, and so on. All these are expected to impact
positively in terms of enhancing the quality of census data. In particular, the civil society
organisations kept vigil on field enumeration processes, including the performance of the
field staff, in order to prevent carelessness and misdoings of the field staffs. The NCOC takes
it as a significantly positive development not only to address the issues of the groups NCOC
is concerned with but also to make the overall census a successful undertaking.