Aligarh: The Aligarh Muslim University has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Directorate of Census Operation, Uttar Pradesh to establish a “Census Data Research Workstation”, to be housed in the Maulana Azad Library of the university.

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Mohammad Gulrez, along with the Registrar, Mohammad Imran, Former Chairman, Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Prof Qazi Mazhar Ali, Deputy Librarian, MAL, Dr. Asif Fareed Siddiqui and Deputy Director, Directorate of Census Operation, UP, Dr SS Sharma and other officers from the directorate witnessed the signing of the MoU.

Prof Mohammad Gulrez said, "It is a known fact that census data plays an important role in the formulation and monitoring of multi-purpose developmental policies and the evaluation of planning. Therefore, it is very important to make the data accessible to the general public, academicians, researchers, students, and data users."

Dr SS Sharma informed that the Government of India’s “Census Data Research Workstations” are being established in all the reputed educational institutions of the country to provide reliable data to academicians, researchers, and students, and to encourage research based on this data.

He said that all published census tables and data from Census 1991, 2001, and 2011 are available to researchers in digital format at these research workstations, and from these workstations, data users can easily obtain various census-related data as well as micro-data for their studies and research.

This workstation enables students and researchers at AMU to study the socio-economic-demographic context of India's population by providing access to census micro-data for systematic research, he added.

Mohammad Imran emphasized that the “Census Data Research Workstation” established at AMU is useful not only for the Aligarh district but also for the surrounding states. This is an unprecedented effort towards making micro-level census data easily available to teachers, scientists, researchers, students, and other data users to upgrade research on social, economic, and demographic topics.

Based on census data, more than 30,000 tables and 8,000 books, maps, summaries, articles, etc., can be accessed at the workstation through the official website censusindia.gov.in, maintained by the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India.