staying away from census ahmedabad

1,000 government employees get notices for staying away from census

RUTURAJ JADAV AND DILIP PATEL


The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has slapped notices on more than 1,000 government employees for not participating in the census exercise.
Of these, 339 are LIC employees, who have challenged the notices by filing a special civil application against the notices in the Gujarat High Court.
“They claim the civic body does not have the powers to assign census work to LIC employees. The court will give its ruling on the issue tomorrow (Thursday),” an AMC official said.
A senior official of the state census department said that local bodies had the powers to appoint government employees for conducting the exercise. “Section 4 of the Census Act gives local bodies such powers. Any government employee who refuses to participate to take up the work can be fined Rs 1,000 and even sent to prison for up to three years,” he said.
About 12,000 teachers are conducting the population count in Ahmedabad. The AMC had asked government employees to join the exercise to ease their workload