As the Social and Educational Survey is set to conclude on Friday, only 43.5% of the targeted households have been fully surveyed in the Greater Bangalore Authority (GBA) area, as on Thursday evening.
However, official data reveals an interesting anomaly. The GBA limits had 44,19,432 targeted households, of which 19,24,770 (43.5%) have been fully surveyed and 29,40,205 (66.5%) marked as closed. This has created a strange situation where the GBA has recorded a completion rate of 105%.
This as a result of administrative inclusion of closed and unsurveyable households and that the tally covers not only households that completed the questionnaire but also those that were locked, refused participation, had migrated, or were identified as commercial or vacant premises.
The duplicate or overlapping Unique Household Identification (UHID) numbers being counted, along with closed households, has inflated the overall tally, pushing the reported progress beyond 100%, officials said.
The GBA area has been consistently among the slowest performing areas in the State. The officials attributed delays to resistance from several Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) and reluctance among urban residents to share socio-economic details. The survey, conducted by the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes, is set to conclude on Friday, with online extension open for voluntary participation until November 10.
West highest surveyed
Among the five corporations, West Corporation has reported the highest number of completed surveys- 5,23,972 of 12,33,034 households, followed by North Corporation, which has completed 4,29,433 of 8,87,520.
In the Central Corporation, the number of targeted households is 5,10,324, while only 2,12,752 were actually completed. This should translate to a completion rate of around 41.7%, yet the progress report, as of Thursday, shows 100.41%. “The intent was to ensure that every address within the jurisdiction is accounted for, even if complete data could not be collected. But because of this inclusion, the completion percentage looks unusually high. It’s a technical, not physical, reflection of progress,” the official said.
UHID system
A large part of the confusion stems from the UHID system. Each household is assigned a unique code, but several overlapping or outdated UHIDs from earlier exercises have distorted the dataset. “Several unsurveyable cases are tied to UHID conflicts. A household may already have a UHID from an earlier survey, or a commercial property may have multiple UHIDs linked to separate electricity or borewell connections, which block new entries at the same location,” the senior official said.
The officials also mentioned that the survey period starting October 23, when the exercise was resumed post Deepavali holidays and when many teachers had already been relieved, saw a rush of data uploads and validation entries. In several instances, multiple UHIDs were generated for the same address, sometimes through technical triggers, further pushing up the overall completion figures.
Published – October 30, 2025 10:29 pm IST
