Census needs teachers, but schools even more

India's population census will finally be held in 2027 - six years too late.

- Anshul Dalmia

The mammoth exercise will require an army of temporary staff - officers, enumerators, supervisors. Once again, the government's go-to workforce will be schoolteachers.

Under Section 27 of the Right to Education Act, 2009, teachers can be deployed for "nonacademic" purposes, but only for elections, census, and disaster relief. The law was meant to be narrow. In practice, it has become a catchall excuse to saddle teachers with administrative chores. The result is that teachers (overworked and, often, underpaid) are being forced to do the State's paperwork at the expense of their students' right to learn.