World's Largest Census?

OneWorld South Asia just published a great piece by Bappa Majumdar on India’s preparation for one of the world’s biggest ever censuses. This once in ten-year exercise is an important national report card, especially to understand the impact that the growing economy has on the country’s population. The scale of the effort is somewhat mind-blowing:

Millions of volunteers and census officials will visit every household around the country in the next few years to gather information on jobs, education and quality of life.

India’s population is projected to grow to 1.19 billion in 2011 from 1.13 billion in 2008, according to census authorities.