TEAM HERALD
CANACONA: A former sarpanch’s wife has been a mother at the age of 16 and another resident’s wife has a different surname, if one goes by the Draft Publication of Information of Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC)-2011 at Agonda village.
Residents in various parts of Canacona taluka are highly critical of the Draft Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC)-2011 list presently kept for public scrutiny, claiming that the list is riddled with errors, omissions and frivolous entries.
The Draft Publication of SECC-2011 has been kept in the offices of local bodies (panchayat and municipal council) for public scrutiny and suggestions till Sunday, before it will be considered for final publication, sources told Herald.
“If one takes a look at the SECC draft list kept at the Agonda panchayat office, almost every person in the list will need to seek corrections and/or additions to the list, as the entire draft list is full of wrong entries, spelling mistakes, omissions, etc,” said former Agonda Sarpanch Jovi Fernandes.
Even though there had been wide publicity regarding the SECC draft list, not many residents took serious note of the draft list on display.
“A few of them glanced at the list out of sheer curiosity and were shocked to find their personal details like names and birth dates full of errors, while some names of residents had gone missing,” a source said.
Agonda panch Tippu Pagi, who was also surprised to find errors in details of his family members, told Herald that the procedure to correct the errors was a tedious exercise.
“The errors and mistakes are numerous and in some cases, entries of all family members need corrections in names and birth dates,” he said.
A visibly agitated Fernandes who discovered errors in his entire family list asked, “Will government authorities accept these names/identifications, if submitted for any government scheme, etc, in the present form?”
Fernandes, who is self-employed, was shown as ‘Government Service’ while his wife’s date of birth was wrongly mentioned as 1980, instead of 1970.
Another resident, Dattaram Velip, found the name of his wife (Deepika Velip) recorded as Deepika Pagi.
“As a matter of practice, the government often outsources these jobs and the data collectors undertake the exercise without proper guidance and authentication,” said Fernandes.
“Correcting these numerous errors will be a daunting task as the applicant will be forced to going through a tedious process of filling up forms, providing documentary evidence, and making a personal appearance before the authorities, similar to the exercise to correct/add details in the electoral rolls.”
Correcting these numerous errors will be a daunting task as the applicant will be forced to going through a tedious process of filling up forms, providing documentary evidence, and making a personal appearance before the authorities, similar to the exercise to correct/add details in the electoral rolls.
