NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi government plans to release the religion-based data of Census 2011 next week, possibly soon after US President Barack Obama's visit. Home ministry sources on Tuesday told TOI that Union home minister Rajnath Singh has already given the green signal to registrar general of India & census commissioner C Chandramouli to keep the crucial data, showing the religion-wise growth in population of the country, states as well as districts, ready for release.Incidentally, the data was collated and compiled by the census authorities by early 2014, but reportedly held back by UPA government in the wake of upcoming general election. It is believed that the data points to significant growth in Muslim population in districts along the eastern and even Indo-Nepal border, which forced the UPA to postpone its publication.In the normal course, religion data is released within three years of enumeration. For the 2001 census, the figures were out in 2004. Even this time, the data was reportedly compiled by March 2014. Incidentally, while the UPA sat on it until being voted out in the April-May 2014 general election, the BJP government too was preoccupied with other priorities in the last few months.If sources are to be believed, the highlights of the religion data of Census 2011 were shared by the RGI/census commissioner with Union home minister Rajnath Singh and home secretary Anil Goswami at their meeting in September last year. At the time, Singh, looking at the reported demographic changes in certain districts bordering Bangladesh and Nepal, concurred on the need to crack down on illegal immigration. Towards this end, he supported the proposal to expedite the national population register (NPR) project and take it to its logical conclusion, which "is the creation of a National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC)".However, there has been no forward movement since on either release of the religion data relating to Census 2011 or the proposal to seek Cabinet approval for NRIC.Around three to four days back, home minister Singh, purportedly at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, again took a presentation on religion census and sought its release "at an early date".Though data for most of the Census 2011 parameters are in, some like religion-wise population figures are still awaited. The religion data will be followed by release of occupation-based data and other indices.