The enumerators and supervisors, entrusted with the responsibilities of conducting the Social and Educational Survey 2025 in rural areas, particularly the Malnad region, are facing difficulties to complete their tasks. Besides the network issues and technical issues with the mobile-based applications, they are facing difficulties to reach out to the families they have been assigned to meet and collect data.
An enumerator is assigned 150 households to cover. For every 20 enumerators, there is a supervisor, who guides them and also cross-checks the survey. The enumerators reach out to the households based on the unique identification number (UHID), assigned to electricity customer, and conduct the survey. The Escom officials have pasted stickers with respect to each electricity consumer, as part of mapping the households for the survey.
However, in many places, the stickers have been pasted against electricity meters belonging to government offices, libraries, anganwadis, and panchayat offices. In rural areas, many people have got additional connection for pump sets in farmland. The Escom officials have pasted stickers with UHID for such meters too. The supervisors have been given the task of handling such cases and make note of them on the application after visiting those places physically.
A supervisor, assigned to work in the Malnad region, told The Hindu, “The supervisors have been asked to personally visit the households where the people refuse to share details, record the empty houses and government buildings, where no family resides. Being a supervisor, I have to personally visit them and make entries on the applications. Otherwise, those UHIDs remain uncovered in the system. This is a difficult task for a supervisor. If there are such 10 places with respect to one enumerator, there are 20 enumerators with me. I may have to visit 200 places, spread over vast area. It takes a long time to reach out to all of them,” said the supervisor.
Applications
Each enumerator has to use three mobile-based applications to complete the survey. One is about the survey – KSCBC Survey, Prutha (to track UHID), and a face recognition application. The enumerators ask for ration card. If the family has a ration card, the survey process is smooth as they get names of the family members as soon as they enter the details of the ration card. In case of an Aadhaar card, they have to wait for an OTP. If generating OTP was delayed, the enumerators have been asked to take photos of a family member for face recognition and proceed. “Since this morning, we have been facing problem with the face recognition application. The response is slow and the process is taking a long time,” said an enumerator in Hosanagara taluk.
Network issue
The major issue bothering the enumerators in the rural areas is network. In the first three days, the process hardly took place in the region. A person assigned 130 houses in Hosanagara taluk, told The Hindu that in the first four days, he could only submit details of only six families. “On Friday, I completed the enumeration of 11 families. I could have done better if the network was strong. I had to wait for the OTP and the process was delayed,” he said.
Many of the enumerators said the survey work went smooth during the morning and evening hours. Hence, they had preferred visiting the families in morning or evening to afternoon.
Published – September 27, 2025 07:10 pm IST
