Amaravati, Jan 18 (PTI) The Andhra Pradesh government will begin a comprehensive caste census on January 19 to enumerate all castes in the state.

The YSRCP government has set the caste census as a major goal and is considering that the enumeration can transform the living standards of people, according to government sources.

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Earlier, Information and Public Relations (I & PR) Minister C Srinivasa Venugopala Krishna said that there has been no caste census in India post independence but only a population census.

As part of the caste census, the state government elicited opinions from caste representatives across the state.

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Aiming to conduct the caste census in a fair and comprehensive manner, the southern state wants to project its enumeration exercise as a role model across the country.

Though initially the caste census was announced to cover the 139 Backward Classes (BC) communities, now its scope includes all castes in Andhra Pradesh.

As part of the census, the state government will extensively deploy the village secretariat system for the caste census, along with the volunteer system.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)