When what happened regarding the caste survey?
The proposal to conduct caste based census was first passed unanimously in the bihar Assembly on 27 February
2020. At that time there was BJP-JDU government in the state. After this, on 23 august 2021, a delegation led
by bihar Chief minister CM nitish kumar and leader of Opposition Tejashwi met prime minister Modi.
Leaders of all parties were included in this delegation.
On june 1, 2022, an all-party meeting was held in the state regarding the issue of caste-based enumeration. All
parties agreed in this meeting. The special thing is that even at that time there was a bharatiya janata party and
JDU government in Bihar. The proposal related to caste census was passed from the cabinet on 2 june 2022.
After which the government ordered to conduct the survey in two phases and a budget provision of Rs 500 crore
was made. Caste census started in bihar from january 7. At that time the responsibility of conducting the survey
was handed over to the General Administration Department of which nitish kumar is the head.
The second phase of caste census was started on 15 april 2023. In this phase, 17 types of information were
sought from all the families of Bihar. On april 21, 2023, a petition was filed in the supreme court against the
caste enumeration and on april 27, the supreme court asked the petitioners to approach the High Court. On May
4, 2023, a bench of patna high court, while hearing 5 petitions, put an interim stay on the survey. The High
court said that it will take a decision after a detailed hearing. After this, a hearing was held on 1 august 2023
and after this the patna high court lifted the stay on the survey. The bench accepted the survey as correct and
said that it is necessary. The government said that caste is the reality of society. On september 6, 2023, the
supreme court asked for a hearing on the caste survey, but refused to ban the publication of the data.