Bengaluru: With about 1,800 castes listed and 60 survey questions, the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes is gearing up to launch the socio-economic survey of the nearly 7 crore population from September 22.

In preparation for the massive exercise, household mapping is currently underway, and a handbook has been printed to aid in the training process. “We discussed having around 70 questions in the beginning, which has been brought down to about 60. The handbook has been printed for use in training teachers and master trainers,” The Hindu quoted Commission sources as saying.

The training for master trainers will commence on September 8, followed by training for nearly 1.6 lakh school teachers, who will serve as enumerators in the house-to-house survey, starting September 12.

The Energy Department, which is providing geo-tagged household data, has already completed more than 35% of the mapping, and has committed to delivering the full list of households by September 15.

Earlier, the Commission had published a provisional list of 1,400 castes and sub-castes, inviting objections from the public. In response, several communities reportedly submitted requests to add omitted names or alternate names/synonyms for their castes.

The commission had deliberately dropped the names of those castes that had less than 10 households from the published list of 1,400 castes, and a request had come to include them. “We are considering their requests. We expect the caste list to exceed just over 1,800 in the State at the start of the survey. We will also include the list of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the final list,” The Hindu quoted Commission sources as saying.

Despite the scale of the upcoming door-to-door survey and concerns raised over limited preparation time, Commission officials remain confident. They mentioned that advanced technologies will be used to conduct the survey and monitor its functioning. “If a household is left out of the survey, it can be identified using geo-tagging. We will complete the survey on schedule,” they added.

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New Delhi (PTI): Four more accused have been arrested in connection with the alleged assault on an Army brigadier, his son and threatening his wife in southwest Delhi's Vasant Enclave area, police said on Friday.

The accused have been identified as Surjit Singh (36), Sunil Sharma (53) and Ashish (32), all from Mehram Nagar in Delhi, and Satender (35) of Bhiwani in Haryana, police said.

According to police, Surjit Singh was known to the main accused Satender, a director of an aviation company. All of them were sitting together in Mehram Nagar when Satender called them regarding a quarrel in Vasant Enclave.

"Following the call, all four left for the spot in Surjit's white Hyundai Aura. After reaching there, they got involved in the altercation and assault before returning to their respective homes," a senior police officer said.

After learning about the registration of the case, the accused fled and went into hiding, he said.

"Teams were constituted to trace them and all four absconding accused were arrested," he said.

The Hyundai Aura used in the incident has also been recovered, police said.

Further investigation into the case is underway. The role of each accused is being examined, they said.

According to the investigators, the incident took place on the night of April 11, when the brigadier and his son objected to the two men allegedly consuming alcohol inside a car parked outside their residence. Soon, others reached the spot and allegedly assaulted the officer and his son, besides abusing and threatening his wife.