Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

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REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA.
to Government to all Deputy Commissioners, which is printed among the appendices
to this report. This letter dealt with the initiation of preliminary operations,
gave general instructions as to the division of the area of the province
into well-ascertained Census units, defined the expressions " Charge," " Circle,"
" Block," " Charge Superintendent," " Supervisor," " Enumerator," and the like,
laid down what classes of the community were ordinarily to be selected as Census
officers, communicated orders regarding non-synchronous areas, and finally prescribed,
as a first step towards the end to be attained, the preparation of a District
Census register, which came to be known later as the " General village " (or Town)
register." The form of this register was new to Burma. It corresponded more or
less with the " Subdivisional register " prescribed at the 1891 Census ;
but, whereas
the Subdivisional register showed at a comparatively late stage of the operations
the steps that had actually been taken to divide the different districts up into
Census divisions and to select from their inhabitants individuals^ for appointment
as Census officers, the General village register (or, as for some time it was called,
Appendix A) was intended to exhibit, at the very outset, and in a purely provisional
form (to be subsequently revised and brought up to date), the Deputy Commissioner's
proposals for these arrangements. The details of the information given
were, however, practically identical in both cases. The main feature of both was an
exhaustive list" of Census blocks and circles, either created or proposed, for each
township and subdivision, with a rough estimate of the number of houses in each
Census division and from both it was possible to obtain, so to speak, a bird's eye
view of the Census arrangements completed or contemplated, as the case might
be, for each district. The following extract from Chapter II of the Provincial
Census Code, referred to in a later paragraph, shows generally the purposes the
register was intended to serve :
" The basis of all Census operations in rural areas is the statement or register showing
the villages actually in existence in each district. Without such a register, carefully corrected
up to date, entire villages may be omitted from the Census operations; the same
village or parts of it may be included in two circles or charges, and great confusion may
arise on the borders of districts and minor administrative divisions. In order to make a
good scheme of Census divisions for a district, it is essential to know (a) the number and
names of the villages in the district, (b) the number and names of the hamlets, (c) the number
of houses in each village or hamlet, and (rf) the number of persons in each village or
hamlet who are fit to be appointed as Supervisors or Enumerators, as the case may be.
Given these particulars, it is easy, with the aid of a map, to group villages in Supervisors'
circles and to determine provisionally the number of blocks in each village. The arrangement
thus made may require to be modified later on when the houses are numbered and the
house lists written up, but meanwhile it will show how many schedules will be required for
each village and how many notices of appointment will have to be issued to Supervisors and
Enumerators. It will also indicate in what areas there is likely to be difficulty in procuring
a competent agency locally."
The preparation of a record of this nature was naturally expected to be a
task of some magnitude, and, as there was no prospect of any of the registers being
ready much before the beginning of June, I was allowed by the Local Government
to proceed on three months' leave immediately after the conference referred to in
the preceding paragraph.
4. Before passing on to the later stages of the work, namely, those entered
upon after the 1st
. June, it may be as well for
,
me to
,
^Areas not dealt w,th synchrona(W^tQ
thfi arrangements made f