Shivamogga
Technical glitches continued to bother school teachers, appointed as enumerators for the Social and Education Survey being conducted by the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes, even on the second day of the exercise, on Tuesday.
The enumerators had a tough time feeding the data into the mobile-based application, as the response was delayed. They took, in some cases, up to one hour to complete enumeration of one family.
The Hindu spoke to a few enumerators on the field and master trainers, who were guiding the enumerators and trying to resolve the technical issues at the time of entering data.
K.T. Manjula, a teacher, reached a house at Basavanagudi in Shivamogga district to collect details from an aged couple as part of the survey. She completed the process of getting answers to 40 questions with respect to the male member and fed them into the designated application. It took about 15 minutes.
The process stopped when she was about to take a one-time password (OTP) to feed details of the female member in the family. There was a delay in getting the OTP. Even after repeated attempts, the OTP was not generated.
Yathish Gowda, a master trainer, tried to resolve the issue. However, there was no response. By then, the teacher had spent more than 45 minutes at the residence, and the process was incomplete.
Bhaskar K. Bhat, an enumerator for Basavanagudi Extension in Shivamogga district, said he could not even begin the process. “The application is not responding. I could not feed data of even one family,” he said.
Ravi Kumar, who was allotted Hosamane Extension, visited a house for enumeration but could not complete the process due to a technical problem, and returned empty-handed. “I am taking a break for some time, and will try later,” he said.
The time required for enumeration of a family depends on the number of members in the family.
“If there are only two members, we can complete the process within 30 minutes. Each individual has to respond to 40 questions, and then 20 questions are related to the family. In case the family members are more in number, it takes a longer time. After entering the data, the enumerator has to read out the data entered and get confirmation from the respondents,” said Yathish Gowda, a master trainer in Shivamogga.
Mr. Yathish Gowda has the experience of working during the previous survey conducted by the Justice H.N. Nagamohan Das Commission. “Going by my previous experience, I can say that the process will go smoothly in a day or two. The technical glitches are quite expected initially. Gradually, the process will pick up,” he stated.
Each enumerator has the task of covering 150 families. The commission has appointed one supervisor for 20 enumerators. “The supervisor has to randomly select 10% of the families and check to ensure that the enumerators have done their job,” he said.
Published – September 23, 2025 05:09 pm IST
