Ninety-Six Forms, Ninety-Five IDs: Reconciling Household Schedules
You are reconciling household schedules entered from a survey in a panchayat of Muzaffarpur district, Bihar. The register shows 96 forms issued: 32 in Hamlet 1, 28 in Hamlet 2 and 36 in Hamlet 3. The household ID format is block (2 digits) – panchayat (3 digits) – hamlet (1 digit) – serial (3 digits), all under the prefix 07-114. The entered data show: Hamlet 1 serials 001 to 032; Hamlet 2 serials 001 to 028; Hamlet 3 serials 001 to 036, but serial 017 is absent and serial 022 appears twice - once with head 'Ramesh Yadav', 5 members, and once with head 'Sunita Devi', 5 members. A record at 07-114-2-014 also names Ramesh Yadav with 5 members. The two Ramesh Yadav records carry the same GPS reading to six decimal places. Your colleague wants to delete the Hamlet 3 copy and move on, because the submission date is fixed.
1. Reconcile the counts and list every anomaly precisely.
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Rows entered: 32 + 28 + 36 = 96, which matches the forms issued. So the row count looks healthy and would pass a casual check.
Distinct IDs, however, are only 95. Hamlet 3 holds serials 001–036 with 017 absent and 022 appearing twice, so it contributes 35 distinct IDs, not 36. 32 + 28 + 35 = 95.
Anomalies:
- Duplicate ID: 07-114-3-022 is entered twice, under two different head names with the same member count.
- Missing ID: 07-114-3-017 does not appear, although a form should exist for it - most likely an unentered paper form.
- Possible duplicate household: 07-114-2-014 and the Ramesh Yadav copy of 3-022 share head name, member count and GPS to six decimals.
The colleague's plan fixes the row count by removing a row and leaves both the missing 017 and the identity question unresolved - and may delete a genuine household.
2. Are 07-114-2-014 and 07-114-3-022 the same household? Reason it out and state what you would do.
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Same name and same member count are weak evidence - names repeat heavily, and a five-member household is common. Identical GPS to six decimal places is strong evidence: that is a difference of roughly 0.1 m, and two separate dwellings do not share a point.
But strong evidence is not proof. A split family can occupy one courtyard, and two structures can stand within a metre of each other; a mis-keyed hamlet digit can also produce this pattern.
So do not delete. Check the paper forms for 2-014 and 3-022 and compare: the full member roster (names, ages, sex), the structure number, the enumerator's signature and the date of visit. If the rosters match line by line, 3-022 is a duplicate entry and should be flagged for the supervisor's approval, with the reason recorded. If the rosters differ - say Sunita Devi is listed as head with a different set of children - they are two households, and the shared GPS simply reflects one compound.
The decision rule is: resolve identity on the paper schedule, never on the name field alone.
3. What checks would you build in so that this does not recur at the next submission?
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Build the checks before submission, not after.
- Serial continuity: every hamlet must run 001 to N with no gap and no repeat. This alone would have caught 3-017 and 3-022.
- ID uniqueness: the full ID must be unique across the file - a duplicate-ID rule catches the second 3-022 immediately.
- Cross-field flags: identical GPS plus identical head name plus identical member count should raise a flag for review, not trigger an automatic deletion.
- Total reconciliation: rows entered must equal forms issued, and distinct IDs must equal rows entered minus duplicates plus unentered forms. Here 96 rows, one duplicate, one missing form, 95 distinct IDs - the arithmetic itself tells the story.
- Sample re-check: compare 5–10 per cent of entered records against the paper schedules, chosen at random, to catch what rules cannot - a wrong hamlet digit, a page keyed twice, a name typed from the previous form.
Every correction should record the date, the field changed and the person who approved it, so that the audit trail survives the submission date.