Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government on Friday kicked off a massive household survey that will collect socio-economic data of 14.8 million households in the state that will be uploaded real-time. About 30,000 enumerators will be involved in the exercise that will span 22 days.

True to the style of its technology-savvy chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, the enumerators will collect data on a tablet device and upload details online in real-time. The government is calling it ‘Smart Pulse Survey’.

Enumerators will collect a range of demographic details from a person’s Aadhar number to mobile phone number during the survey. The government says it has only 60% of the information it needs. Having the remaining 40% information will help it plug leakages and deliver welfare schemes more effectively.

“The details of each household will help the government to take up many more developmental programmes and ensure that it reaches the right beneficiaries," chief minister Naidu said in a press statement on Wednesday, while reviewing preparations for the exercise.

The government expects the survey to solve “many problems on a real-time basis" and increase accountability and transparency. However, in places that lack 2G and 3G mobile data connectivity, enumerators are allowed to collect socio-economic information on paper and later upload household details onto government servers.

There are two interesting takeaways from the survey.

The government is using the services of Hyderabad-based start-up Zippr Pvt. Ltd to geotag each household in the state and allot them a unique alphanumeric digital code. The household data will be linked to the geotagged location.

“The government is using Zippr’s digital door numbering platform to provide smart addresses for all the citizens of Andhra Pradesh. Our component is focused on smart address generation and is part of a much larger survey being conducted by the government," Aditya Vuchi, founder and chief executive officer of Zippr said.

Zippr digital pin, for example, could help emergency services reach an address faster or help people report power cuts or other disruptions more easily.

Second, the survey allows people to update information including change of address to their Aadhar account.

Andhra Pradesh’s socio-economic data is on the lines of one undertaken by neighbouring Telangana in August 2014 in which 369,000 enumerators fanned out in 10 districts of Telangana to capture demographic data of 8.4 million households.

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