Home ministry gets Sachin free for Census campaign

The Home ministry has managed to rope in master blaster Sachin Tendulkar and Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra free of cost for the Census 2011 campaign. "There is no cost on our part for endorsement of stars like Sachin and Chopra.
It is the UNICEF which has roped them for the campaign. Whether they have paid them anything or not, we do not know," Deputy Registrar General P K Banerjee said here today during the launch of the final phase of census 2011 between February 9 and February 28.

The stars would be seen campaigning with the slogan, "You count, so we count".
The Rs 12 crore census campaign, in which UNICEF is a partner, will be in various regional languages covering a total of 240 million households across the country.
With the expenditure of just Rs 18.33 for each person, this census is also being considered as the most cost-effective.
The biggest-ever census attempted in the history of mankind enumerating the country's 1.2 billion population will be conducted across all states and union territories.
The Rs 2,200 crore exercise will cover all citizens living in 7,742 towns and six lakh villages in 640 districts of India.
In West Bengal, a total of 18 million households would be covered in the second and final lap of data collection.